HOW THE OLD GUARD WILL LOOK TO FEND OFF THE FRESH TALENT
The 5 Nations BRX Championship blasts into life this weekend.
For the first time since the promotion and organisation of the British Rallycross Championship was taken over by Lydden Hill Motor Club two years ago and rebranded as 5 Nations BRX, the series will visit five different countries in 2022.
Through two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the series was hit by event cancellations and postponements, making travelling to anything other than the regular British circuits all but impossible. It’s one of those regulars, arguably the most famous rallycross venue in the world, Lydden Hill, that will host the season-opening double-header this weekend, as the British series returns to its traditional Easter Weekend slot at the Kent venue for the first time since 2019.
A strong line-up of headline Supercars has committed to the season-opener and 2022 campaign and some fast young chargers will face a number of the old guard, where experience so often can make up a youthful panache shortfall.
Although ultimately cut short due to Covid-19 related travel restrictions, the 2021 season went down to the wire, with champion Derek Tohill and regular title contender Ollie O’Donovan separated by just a pair of points.
Both drivers return for the 2022 opener, double European champion Tohill’s Ford
Fiesta adorned with the coveted GB1 number, while O’Donovan will campaign a brand-new Proton Iriz RX. O’Donovan will have permanent team-mate this year as his son Patrick, who celebrates his
18th birthday on the eve of the Lydden weekend, graduates to the highest domestic level with the Ford Fiesta his father campaigned in recent years.
Impossible to discount, six-time champion Julian Godfrey returns for another effort with his ageing Ford Fiesta that he first used in 2005, while other regular returnees include Tristan Ovenden, Mike Sellar, Andy Grant, Roger Thomas and Steve Hill.
Dom Flitney has committed to a full season with the Volvo C30 he made his debut with last year, while Michael Boak joins the Supercar fold with a Skoda Fabia. Colin Anson will return with an ex-Christopher Evans Opel Astra and Bradley Westgarth will race a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo.
Steve Harris will give the debut to the series’ first all-electric Supercar, an adapted ex-Prodrive Mini JCW WRC, once the car is completed. Nitro RX contender Oliver Bennett will contest the opening round this weekend and will put a cat among the pigeons with his former World Rallycross BMW Mini internal combustion machine.
Within the supporting cast, the twowheel-drive Supernational division is experiencing a resurgence after dropping numbers in recent seasons, while the single-make categories, headlined by the Motorsport UK
Junior Rallycross Championship for 14-17-year olds in 1300cc Suzuki Swifts, also feature a strong entry.
The BMW Mini category continues to grow, while the RX150 division has also returned to healthier numbers for 2022.
The most eclectic field is reserved for the Retro Rallycross division, with class boasting the largest entry of any class within 5 Nations BRX, including a range of cars of different specifications from different eras, up to the end of 1991.
‘Experience can often outweigh youthful panache’
Interviewed by Mark Webber and David Coulthard live on air following retirement from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2016, his last as full-time Formula 1 driver, Jenson Button was asked by Webber: “So now what? Obviously you’ll have some lemonades tonight, then on Monday…?”
Button’s response was immediate: “We’ll talk about our rallycross team we’re going to have in the future.”
Reminded by Coulthard that they were live on Channel 4, Button retorted: “OK, well hopefully we’ll get rallycross on that channel as well because it’s a proper category. Seriously, there’s no rubbish in rallycross.”
The 2009 Formula 1 World champion had already sampled a rallycross Supercar at Lydden Hill for a BBC F1 feature in 2015 and tested an Olsbergs MSE Honda Civic in the US in early 2017, but his plans went nowhere.
Now, six years on, his rallycross dream is becoming a reality. This isn’t a flash in the pan, this is a man with an emotional attachment to a discipline, who has weighed up his options a number of times and decided now is the moment to take the leap. He has signed for Xite Energy Racing as team-mate to fellow Brit
Oliver Bennett for a Nitro Rallycross Championship campaign.
“I was thinking about rallycross at the end of my F1 career,” Button told Motorsport News at his secret Pembrey test recently. “That was the aim of mine because it’s in my blood. My dad [John] used to race in autocross and rallycross back in the 1970s and 1980s. I lost my dad eight years ago and I feel that it’s just nice to have that experience in rallycross, he always used to love it. This is another challenge, it’s completely different to anything I’ve done before.”
While John Button achieved success in the British Rallycross Championship, most notably racing a Volkswagen Golf and Beetle, his son’s career took him circuit racing.
Post F1, Button Jr has raced off-road, but the experience has been limited to the Mint 400 and Baja 1000 in the US, and the inaugural Extreme E round in Saudi Arabia 2021 with his own JB XE team.
Button explains: “Baja is nothing like rallycross at all, the thing feels like it’s going to fall over the whole time because it’s mostly suspension tuning for big and small bumps. And Extreme E is completely different as well. A rallycross car doesn’t feel like that [falling over], which is great because I hate that feeling. I like the feeling of a gradual slide that you can actually do something with.
And having confidence to back it onto a corner if you like.”
The backing-it-into-a-corner style, especially on some of Nitro RX’s all-loose circuits with big elevation change, doesn’t come naturally to Button, but he’s working on it.
“In an F1 car when you get oversteer it’s not nice because it snaps, whereas a rallycross car is supposed to move around and then it’s fun, you feel the weight transfer and what the car’s doing. It’s still something I need to work on – I feel like I’m massively sideways, but the team are like ‘you’re really smooth, we’ve got to work on you turning the car a lot more, especially on the dirt and reversing it in to a lot of the corners.’That’s going to take a bit of time for me to get my head around. It will come,” he says.
Button will race a brand-new allelectric, four-wheel-drive, 1000bhp, FC1-X machine in the Nitro Rallycross series this year, identical spaceframe machines developed between Swedish rallycross outfit Olsbergs MSE and electro mobility experts QEV, in Spain.
For the 2022-2023 Nitro RX season, the series dreamt up by Travis Pastrana has expanded to 10 rounds, visiting Europe and the Middle East, as well as America and Canada, and will begin at Lydden Hill in the UK in June. Button is yet to drive the electric car, but is excited at the prospect. “I will be blown away I’m sure when I drive it,” he says. “The 0-60mph times are just mad. I mean an F1 car is nuts but it just can’t get the power down, it’s two-wheel drive and it’s not meant for that really, but I would love to see this car to do a side-by-side with a current F1 car.”
And as team-mates in the new venture, Button and Bennett can have a contradeal for helping each other learn, coming from circuit and off-road backgrounds respectively. “We’re very different in terms of how we drive, with the positives and benefits from each of our careers to this point,” says Button. “It’s really good having a team-mate, and also it’s equal equipment from the start for everyone on the grid, and it’s how you develop it from there, so it’s working with good engineers, and I like the way the team is. The important thing is to share everything and to go out there and do our best.”
As for hopes, Button isn’t embarking on this project to do anything other than challenge for success, but at the same time, enjoying the experience is a critical requirement.
“Being competitive,” he says when asked of his objectives. “Whether you win a round or not, that’s down to the day and whether you’ve got the set-up right. Sometimes it has to go your way a bit because there’s a lot of very competitive people out there. For me it’s just being competitive and being able to fight with the quick guys.”
“It’ll take a bit of time to conquer the car”
Jenson Button