Oliver Solberg will make his first rallycross start in two years at the second round of the European Rallycross Championship at Höljes in Sweden.
The Hyundai World Rally Championship driver will drive a Hyundai i20 in the RX1 class for Hedströms Motorsport at the ‘Magic Weekend’ event that will also serve as the World Rallycross season-opener.
“This is going to be really fun,” said Solberg. “We have now done a lot of work with details on the car according to our own philosophy we had from the PSRX cars, that together with Peter and his team’s experience around the car will be really good.”
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Solberg, son of two-time World Rallycross champion Petter, is no stranger to competing in rallycross. He finished second in the 2017 RallyX Nordic season, his maiden campaign in the discipline, winning twice that year driving his father’s world championship-winning Citroën DS3.
He took the Nordic title a season later, adding a further three wins, before moving to focus fully on rallying. He did, however, make a one-off return to RallyX Nordic as part of the ‘All-Star’ Magic Weekend event, finishing third behind World RX regulars Johan Kristoffersson and Robin Larsson.
That prior experience in rallycross has already been paying off for Hedströms Motorsport, which has been able to benefit from vital development knowledge from Solberg during testing.
“It struck me that Oliver would be perfect for the Hyundai in Höljes, I called and he jumped on it immediately,” said team boss Peter Hedström. “Then everything came together quickly and together with Petter’s mechanic we have taken the car another big step forward in development.”
Solberg won’t be the only big name competing in European Rallycross at Höljes, with former World RX campaigners Enzo Ide, Anton Marklund and Jānis Baumanis set to do full seasons in the category.
With World RX’s move to an all-electric formula for its premier RX1e class, Euro RX’s RX1 will be the highest tier of combustion-engined rallycross in Europe this season. Nitro Rallycross will also run a combustion class alongside its own electric formula, but only has three events slated for Europe.
