I’d forgotten how much I loved it.
The noise, the action, the hype, the jeopardy.
I’m the staunchest rallying fan in the land, but it wasn’t the World Rally Championship I was most eager to watch last weekend. It was the European Rallycross Championship.
I’d spoken to the two biggest names on the grid (Johan Kristoffersson and Andreas Bakkerud) in the lead up to last week’s opening round in Latvia which helped build the fever, but I couldn’t fight the feeling.
And it’s rare for me. I don’t usually get especially excited for things, but the intrigue was too strong. The WRC is a known quantity (change of course looms in 2027), but this was a new era. I didn’t want to miss out.
Having said that, I never actually intended to watch too much of the action in Riga. After all, my responsibility for the weekend was to cover Rally Portugal remotely. Yet the livestream was regularly on my phone while Rally TV was loaded on the laptop. It just… happened.
The hype stemmed from one simple, but key, decision: no more electric cars.
Internal combustion engines rose to the fore, and a huge grid came with plenty of anti-lag
This isn’t the space to get bogged down in the politics and history – we touched on that last week if you fancy a read. The important thing is the response.
From a top-class grid that shrank as small as four cars in 2025, 30 RX1 cars and drivers lined up for 2026’s season opener. That’s an increase of 750%. Genuinely, that’s insane.
As a result, the racing was worth setting your reminders for. The issue with small grids is things become too predictable… and OK, you’re right, the end result in Riga (Kristoffersson winning) was hardly an upset. But the final did not reflect the true story of the weekend.
Kristoffersson won just one of the qualifying sessions (Q1), with all four (three on Saturday, one on Sunday) being won by different drivers in four different cars! The top seven drivers in the intermediate standings were therefore covered by just 20 points – topped by eight-time world champion Kristoffersson, but only through exciting racing.
He’d pointed out to me prior to Latvia that he might struggle at the starts: “In the world championship, we always ran with a homologated [launch] software controlled by FIA, which meant that, especially for the launch sequence, we were much more limited in terms of what help we could get off the start line.
“Now the software is free, which means that it can be controlled much, much more from the teams and engineers to limit slip and all of that stuff. It’s very, very difficult to beat a well-engineered launch by yourself. So that is always a bit nerve-wracking going into.”
New names took the spotlight, including Andor Trepák (foreground)
And so it proved, as Kristoffersson rarely got the holeshot into Turn 1, meaning we got to see the master at work as he banged in the laptimes and carved his way through the pack.
Then there were the breakthrough stars; 20-year-old Hungarian driver Andor Trepák and 17-year-old Finn Joni Turpeinen in particular. Both youngsters won a qualifying session (Q4 and Q2 respectively) and made big impressions on the contest.
Trepák unfortunately failed to advance from the semis after contact at the start in his Renault Mégane, but Turpeinen – admitting he grew up watching plenty of his rivals as a small boy – slotted his Ford Fiesta onto the podium, ahead of Bakkerud!
“You should never to underestimate anyone,” Kristoffersson told me. How prophetic.
“I think what creates this fuss around it is when the newcomers, the underdogs come and beat the established [drivers],” he added. “And that’s what’s creating all the interest. So I think that’s what we need.”
Kristoffersson, don’t forget, was once that driver sticking himself into the fight against motorsport megastars Petter Solberg, Mattias Ekström, Sébastien Loeb and co.
A Kristoffersson victory wasn't a shock, but it wasn't the walkover the final made it look
That was then, but could then become now? The ingredients are certainly there, aren’t they?
What rallycross is never, is boring. Sadly, I can’t say the same about my first love, the WRC. And the championship found a way to pack even more competition this year with the introduction of the quarter finals, creating higher stakes and more knockout races than previously seen.
As Bakkerud described: “I’m a bit biased here, but I don’t see why rallycross isn’t the most popular motorsport at times. Because if it’s a boring heat, just wait five minutes, [then] you have a thrilling heat.”
The action is non-stop. Everything is fast paced. As an onlooker you almost feel as much adrenaline as the drivers themselves, it’s coming at you so thick and fast. Almost…
Is it a shame it’s not a world championship this year? Yes. Does that really matter? Not when the vibe was as it was. I can’t talk from a paddock perspective, but the spectacle felt like the crème de la crème, which is all we can ask for.
The on-track action was relentless, and felt like a heavyweight contest
If you didn’t watch the season opener, I urge you to watch the second round in Hungary (May 30/31). And if you’ve never been to a rallycross race weekend, make it happen because it has all the best elements of various other motorsports rolled into one flame-spitting package.
It’s now absolutely my intention to get to an event this year – for work or otherwise – because I no longer need to talk about my love for rallycross in the past tense. Those memories of the ‘glory years’ between 2016-18 still burn bright, but I sense we are about to witness a real growth period.
How tall will it grow? It’s too early to say. All I can say, with a great big grin on my face, is rallycross – is – back.
