World RX calendar. Russia opens ’21 season. Block sells Fords.

26 March / An updated calendar for the FIA World Rallycross Championship is published by WRC Promoter. The newly appointed promoter for World RX has worked together with teams and the FIA to confirm a schedule of eight events running over seven weekends. All events will take place within Europe because of the ongoing difficulties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, meaning that Abu Dhabi and South Africa no longer feature compared to the original calendar published in December. The other big changes are that Belgium moves from May to October and from being the season opener to the last event. Finland does not feature and Latvia returns to the championship in September. “The calendar has been revised with the support of the World RX teams to ensure a fitting finale for the Supercars ahead of the start of the exciting electric era in 2022. We want maximum participation, whilst retaining a mouth-watering array of the best circuits. We’ve made a strategic decision to start midway through the year to give organisers every possible opportunity to open their doors to fans in these challenging times,” said WRC Promoter managing director Jona Siebel.

28 March / The first rallycross event to take place in 2021 is held at Fort Grozny where the opening event in the Russian Rallycross Championship is run behind closed doors. The national autocross and rallycross championships share the venue over four days. Rais Minnikhanov (Citroen DS3) wins the Supercar category and Marat Knyazev is best of the Super1600 runners. The national class is the best contested of the categories and is won by
Andrey Petukhov who beats a strong field. Aspiring European RX3 racer Mikhail Simonov is second ahead of the Euro RX regular Egor Sanin in third.

29 March / The Swedish ASN, the SBF, announces that rallycross, rallysprint and an e-sports event will feature in the SM-veckan event at Pitea next year. The televised ‘Swedish Championship Week’ events take place in winter and summer each year, but the last three versions (winter and summer 2020 and winter 2021) have all be cancelled because of COVID-19. The winter 2022 event will take place in the north of Sweden from 23-29 March.

30 March / The M-Sport-built Ford Fiesta in which Ken Block achieved his first GRC rallycross event victory is among three cars from his collection being sold by LBI. “RX43” was used by Block in the 2013 and 2014 GRC seasons as well as in Gymkhana videos. The other cars offered for sale are the OMSE-built five-door Fiesta used in Gymkhana Three and his RS200 ‘dream car’. The sale of the three cars comes after the end of Block’s Ford contract; his new ‘free agent’ period already underway with him driving a Skoda Fabia R5 in the recent 100 Acre Wood Rally.

31 March / RallyX Nordic announces that it will make the use of biofuel mandatory in its Supercar Lites category this year, and in across the whole championship in 2022. RallyX Nordic will use Bio Racing 100% made by P1 Racing Fuels. “There is a stigma around biofuels that they don’t perform as well as fossil fuels, but the data proves that is completely untrue … indeed, recent dyno testing has shown that BIO RACING 100% actually generates more power, making it a win-win for everybody,” said P1 boss Martin Popilka. RallyX Nordic starts at Nysum in Denmark on 1-2 May.

2021 season  /  Check out our guide of rallycross events for 2021. We will keep this as up to date as possible and add further dates and events as details become available. We hope that everyone has the chance to get out there and see some rallycross this year.