World RX unveils 2018 entry list

The list officially confirms that reigning drivers’ champion Johan Kristoffersson will continue to drive for Petter Solberg’s Volkswagen Motorsport-supported PSRX Volkswagen Sweden, carrying No.1 on the side of his Polo. 

While the adapted WRC challenger was referred to as a Polo GTI Supercar for its maiden campaign last year, the car is called a Polo R for 2018. Triple FIA World champion Solberg will continue to drive for his own squad. 

Mattias Ekstrom’s EKS Audi Sport team will field two full-time drivers, down from its three permanent entries last year. Andreas Bakkerud was announced in January as joining Ekstrom in the line-up.

The pair will drive a revised Audi S1 quattro, built with increased support from Audi, which was released in testing at Loheac this week. Ekstrom will run No.5 on his car, the number with which he claimed the World RX title in 2016.

EKS’s third 2017 driver, Reinis Nitiss, announced earlier this week that he will race in European Rallycross this season, driving a SET Promotion-run Ford Fiesta. 

Sebastien Loeb and Timmy Hansen will form the points-scoring line-up for Team Peugeot Total in a pair of 2018-specification Peugeot 208 WRX Supercars, while Kevin Hansen will race as an individual entry in an updated 2017 version of the French machine. 

Marcus Gronholm’s GRX TANECO Team will field a pair of Hyundai i20 Supercars for Timur Timerzyanov and Niclas Gronholm, following the squad’s announcement on Tuesday. 

Aside from Gronholm’s effort, the only other two-car team on the grid that is yet to publicly test its 2018 challenger, GC Kompeition, will run it’s highly-anticipated Prodrive-built Renault Megane Supercar for team owner Guerlain Chicherit and former European Rallycross event-winner Jerome Grosset-Janin in 2018. 

2014 teams’ champions Olsbergs MSE announced on Wednesday that it will return to World RX this season with a pair of new Ford Fiesta Supercars, featuring a move away from a traditional suspension configuration and a front-mounted radiator.

It will field team boss Andreas Eriksson’s oldest son Kevin, and former European Rallycross Champion Robin Larsson in the squad. 

In addition to Kevin Hansen, two other individual permanent competitors will take part in all 12 rounds. Gregoire Demoustier will race a Peugeot 208 for Sebastien Loeb Racing, while Latvian Janis Baumanis remains with Manfred Stohl’s STARD team for a second term. Baumanis undertook testing with the team in Loheac this week.

Up to ten additional round-by-round entries will be accepted by the FIA for each of the twelve rounds, to make a total of 25 drivers. Austrian squad MJP Racing Team Austria, for which Kevin Eriksson and Timo Scheider drove in 2017, hasn’t made a full-time entry to the series.

2018 entry list