Audi Sport has just announced that they will enter FIA World Rallycross Championship as a works team.
Hereby WorldRX will be the 3rd line in their motorsport programme, which already includes DTM and Formula E.
It will be Team EKS, the reigning World Champions as both driver and team, who will run the programme. Teamboss Mattias Ekström will continue to drive himself, parallel to his DTM programme. The car will once again be a Audi S1 EKS RX quattro, that the EKS team will continue to develop, but now with a lot more support from Audi Sport.
Head of Motorsport by Audi Sport, Dieter Gass explained: “We realize that it’s going to be increasingly difficult for EKS to hold its own against the factory teams, so we chose to intensify our World RX commitment.”
Photo: JJ Media
Mattias Ekström continued: “We laid a lot of groundwork as a team in the first three years, gathered important experiences and set new standards with EKS. But it was also clear to us that we’d need support for the future in order to be able to continue on this level. That EKS is now receiving factory backing by Audi makes me very happy. I’m convinced that rallycross has a great future, also with respect to potential electrification.”
What Ekström is hinting at, is the first examples of electric Rallycross cars. We haven’t come to the point yet, where they are going to participate in WorldRX, but with Audi’s big involvement in the electric Formula E Championship, it’s only natural that they will have an interest for this development in the sport.
It hasn’t been announced yet, who will join Mattias Ekström as a driver for the team.
