The FIA World Rallycross Championship’s ‘Battle of the Skills’ arrives in Belgium for the Benelux World RX (17-18 August).
The FIA World Rallycross Championship’s ‘Duel of the Technologies’ returns to Belgium for the Benelux World RX (17-18 August), with another exciting double-header race weekend between electric and combustion engine powered cars powered by sustainable fuels at Circuit Jules Takeny in Mette.
Johan Kristofferson leads the championship and accelerates his quest for a stunning seventh World RX title. Driving the sustainable-fuelled Volkswagen Polo KMS 601 RX, the Swede has won three of his four starts this season, only to be denied a clean sweep in Hungary when he collided with Kevin Hansen in the first corner.
Kristofferson is currently the only driver from the World RX pack to have won a MET, having claimed his maiden World Championship title in 2017.
His KMS-HORSE Powertrain teammate Ole Christian Baby is 25 points behind in second place in the overall standings and will be looking to catch up. The Norwegian finished on the podium at Mettet in the 2015 FIA European Rallycross Championship and holds the record for most podium finishes without a win in World RX. He will be looking to break that record this weekend.
Third on the title table is the Volvo Construction Equipment duo of Niclas Grönholm and Klara Andersson’s CE Dealer Team. The Finn took advantage of Kristoffersson’s misfortune in Hungary to claim his first electrified win of 2024 with the PWR RX1e, while his Swedish colleague added another rostrum result to his increasingly impressive resume in Nyirád after narrowly missing out on a first-time win at the Höljes opener.
Hansen World RX Team brothers Timmy and Kevin Hansen also had similar results, finishing fifth and sixth. 2019 world champion Timmy has three World RX podiums under Mettet, while younger brother Kevin was dramatically eliminated from contention in 2017. The pair are still chasing their first top-three finish of the season and will be hoping to achieve that this weekend.
Experienced campaign manager René Münnich will be driving an ALL-INKL.COM Muennich Motorsport SEAT Ibiza, while Frenchman Anthony Pelfrene will be driving a JDM Raptor Racing Peugeot 208, both piloting combustion engines powered by sustainable fuels.
Benelux’s World RX will also host the penultimate rounds of the 2024 FIA RX2e, Euro RX1 and Euro RX3 Championships, with category leaders Nils Andersen, Patrik O’Donovan and Nils Volland leading the way.
Former Euro RX3 champion Kobe Powells is the ‘wild card’ in an RX2e, with the talented Belgian teenager returning to rallycross on his home track after almost two years away.
Fans can watch the action on Rally.TV.
