The electric future for rallycross

Rallycross is late to the electric motor sport party, we should have been first to cash-in on the hand-in-glove fit that our sport has with the new technology.

The explosive, short, sharp races in rallycross are ideally suited to electric cars; rallycross offers an arena in which the huge performance potential of electric cars can best be demonstrated; where their brutal instant torque and power figures that easily match what we have in today’s best cars can be properly unleashed and exploited.

Rallycross should have been the first form of motor sport to showcase this. STARD revealed its first all-electric car in 2016. However, we are here in 2020 and have an FIA approved International Series for electric cars – Projekt E, and the first prototype for the new FIA RX2e Championship out and about in public. RX2e, a one-make arrive and drive series on the World RX programme, begins in 2021.

The FIA World Rallycross Championship was initially due to have been turned electric by now, but the failure of plans for a new generation of cars – that would have been built on a single supplier carbon fibre chassis by Oreca with batteries from Williams – forced a rethink. 

The revised plan is for an electrifcation kit that retains much of the current chassis regulation and has a spec battery and drivetrain from Kreisel. Those cars should have been on-track in 2021. But this year’s COVID-19 pandemic meant there was no appetite from teams to invest in a whole new generation of cars, so the introduction date is now 2022.

The move to electric cars is a central plank of the development of rallycross. In its recent announcement that it would seek a new promoter for the World Championship, the FIA said: “The FIA is committed to the evolution of Rallycross with World RX in 2021 alongside RX2e – the first-ever FIA electric Rallycross Championship. From 2022, World RX will become fully electric as part of the FIA’s long-term vision for the sport which was first revealed in 2019.”