Nico Müller ahead of rallycross debut
MOTORSPORT Nico Müller changes discipline. This weekend in France, the Audi factory driver will be the first Swiss to take part in a round of the World Rallycross Championship. His DTM teammate Mattias Ekström brought him to this. Nico Müller's Swedish Abt teammate, who currently leads the 2017 DTM standings, runs his own Audi Sport-supported rallycross team called EKS on the side. This means that Mattias Ekström has [...]
Nico Müller's Swedish Abt teammate, who currently leads the 2017 DTM standings, runs his own Audi Sport-backed rallycross team called EKS on the side. Mattias Ekström clinched the world championship title with it in 2016. It's no wonder that the Swiss got a taste for it during many conversations with him and by attending several WRC rounds.
Now the time has come this coming weekend. Ekström's team will be fielding four Audi S1 EKS RX quattro cars for the first time at the ninth round of the 2017 World Championship in Lohéac, France. The 25-year-old from Berne will be piloting one of these 560-hp RX Supercars from the premier class.
Nico Müller is thus the first Swiss ever to take part in a World Championship race in this discipline - a mixture of rally and circuit racing.
"I have been following the World Rallycross Championship for some time. I like the sport and the atmosphere. For me, the start in France is a dream come true. These supercars are just incredible and allow hard and exciting duels. You get hooked."
A paradise for rallycross sport
For riders and fans of this sport, Lohéac, a town 30 km south of Rennes in Brittany, is a paradise. More than 70,000 spectators are expected.
With 33% of asphalt and 67% of gravel, the 1070-meter course is a classic circuit because the loose surface is also very hard. There are many very fast sections where overtaking is possible under braking. Müller could thus make up for his lack of racing experience on gravel against Ekström's WRC opponents.
After two free practice sessions in which the Bernese can get used to the car and the track, which is new to him, the four qualifying runs (two each on Saturday and Sunday) over four laps each will determine the grid positions.
The semifinals and the final run of the best six on Sunday (3 to 3.50 p.m.) will each involve six laps. The lap record is 36.658 seconds; last year's time set by the winner and current world championship leader Johan Kristofferson from Sweden in a VW Polo was 3:54.670.
Mattias Ekström is in third place in the WRC and can therefore make good use of the support of his three teammates. Another first for Nico Müller will be that he will be competing against nine-time World Rally Champion Sébastien Loeb (Peugeot) for the first time in a race.
22 drivers from ten nations have scored points in the first eight WRC rounds. We are curious to see whether Nico Müller will now also immortalize himself in the RX statistics...
