Danish driver Ulrik Linnemann will get his debut in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, when the 6th round of the season will be run on 5-7 July in Höljes.
The racer from the Northern part of Denmark has raced in the Super 1600 European Championship for several years, which was a supporting series at the World RX at many of the European rounds. He switched to the European Championship for Supercars last year, but that was a bit of a tough nut to crack in his Volkswagen Polo, which was previously raced by Anton Marklund. Instead he started a collaboration with Olsbergs MSE to participate in the RallyX Nordic programme.
Not only is he doing the biggest Nordic Rallycross series, but he got to race in in Honda Civic. That exact car is what he is ground to race with in the World RX, which will make him the first person to race with that brand in the World Championship.
Linnemann will be the first Danish racing driver to do the World RX Series, which started back in 2014, as the next step after the European Championship. The first two seasons were dominated by Petter Solberg in a Citroen DS3, in which his son Oliver is now racing, before Volkswagen, Audi, Peugeot and Ford brought in the very big names, with Mattias Ekström and Johan Kristoffersson taking the titles ever since, in Audi and Volkswagen respectively. They did, however, have competition from the likes of Sebastien Loeb and the brothers Timmy and Kevin Hansen, with the latter pair still racing in the Championship.
Photo: RallyX Nordic
The series suffered a bit of a blow after the 2018 season, since all works teams pulled out due to the new rules regarding battery powered cars – which currently is a buzzword in motorsport – was pushed further into the future, due to disagreements between the FIA and the manufacturers. That’s meant that it’s not quite as highly professional outfits racing in the World RX this year, with a lot of the drivers also stepping out of the Championship.
But that could be a bit change for Ulrik. He knows the Höljes track in Sweden from both Super 1600 and Supercar, and will have a huge support from a lot of Danes, who is going to the event anyway, that is located in the middle of a Swedish forest.
Olsbergs MSE has quite a bit of knowledge from the World Championship, running Ford Fiesta WRX’s for a few years.
It’s only a one-race deal so far, but Ulrik Linnemann hopes for more in the future – because the World Championship is his ultimate goal.
