Track guide

Although new to World RX this season, almost all of the permanent competitors have at least tested on the new Silverstone rallycross circuit, while some raced in the opening round of British RX in March, an event won by Sebastien Loeb ahead of Timmy Hansen and Andreas Bakkerud. Motorsport News caught up with some of the sport’s leading drivers to find out more about World RX’S newest circuit.

Turn 1: The opening hairpin

Andreas Bakkerud: “The grip is very high in Silverstone, so that’s a big challenge for everyone. Even if we have 600 horsepower it’s high grip and hard to get a good start. Turn 1 is a basic, tight-right hairpin, it’s good to be on pole position, but outside will be very hard if you’re don’t have a good start.”

Turn 2/3/4:Chicane on loose

Kevin Hansen: “Then a short straight before braking quite hard and right, entering the gravel. It’s very easy to do a mistake and then rotating to the left on the gravel, which is the secondslowest corner on the track. Then we accelerate towards the jump. There’s a small right [before], which doesn’t really have any effect.”

Jump

Sebastien Loeb: “The jump is quite a good one. You have to slow down for the corner a bit before but it’s technical; you need to find the right measure of the jump, to be able to brake just after to turn. It’s not easy to have the right speed.”

Turn 5: Corner after jump

Mattias Ekstrom: “We really have big air and a hard landing. Then the right hander afterwards was very slippery on the test.”

Turn 7:Tight right

Hansen: “It’s hard braking for the hairpin. I think that’s the best place to overtake as it’s a left before and you need to be still on the left for the braking, so there maybe you can overtake. Then you’re throwing it in and really power sliding through [to the right], exiting towards the joker. The joker entry is quite much on the right and very long.”

Turn 8a/9a: Joker lap

Bakkerud: “The joker is very tight. You go in braking on gravel and it’s very slippery on the Tarmac because of all the dirt you bring in, so it’s slippery in the beginning but in the middle there it’s high grip so if you’re not ready to kick the clutch then you can suffer a big time loss.”

Turn 8/9: Run to the line

Ekstrom: “When you go normal [not joker] you go between the tyre walls and over the small jump up to start/finish. That’s a pretty cool part. I think the coolest places [for overtaking] will be the joker merge and over the start-finish line.”

Overtaking opportunities

Johan Kristoffersson: “It’s easy to say that it’s a tricky track and impossible to overtake, but to be honest in rallycross it’s always very difficult to overtake because there is only one line anyway. In circuit racing there are racing lines and you have debris on the side [of the racing line], but in rallycross you always have dust and a lot of gravel, so there is still only one line. It doesn’t matter how wide the track is, the only overtaking happens when someone makes a mistake. You just have to stay close and the overtaking opportunity is up to the one in front who makes a mistake, and when he makes a mistake I will overtake him, it doesn’t matter where it is!”