Motorsport ‘I’m ready for another thrilling and epic race in Barcelona’
Bristol’s Extreme E racing driver Oliver Bennett talks us through his preparations for the World RX of Cataluyna in Spain
THERE’S nothing quite like the feeling of a race week. Every day, the energy and the excitement builds towards what’s coming on the weekend. This is one of those weeks.
We’re off to Barcelona for World RX of Catalunya.
You might be aware that I’m competing in Extreme E this season. Extreme E is a groundbreaking, all-electric off-road series where we race (and beat!) the likes of 2009 Formula One world champion Jenson Button in places on the planet compromised by climate change.
We’ve been to Saudi Arabia and Senegal and Greenland’s next at the end of August.
I’m loving Extreme E. The challenge to race without leaving a trace is huge, but something we have fully embraced – to such an extent that we’ve taken over the team, which is now called XITE Energy Racing powered by myenergi team.
It’s very cool that, in a globally recognised motorsport series, the South West has two drivers in Jenson Button and I, and Bristol has a driver and a team based out of the city.
As well as Extreme E, we’re competing in an American series called Nitro Rallycross – a championship which will go fully electric next season.
Not having competed in America before, we made the decision that we would tackle this year’s Nitro RX in preparation for 2022.
With no electric category, we will have to take our conventional Mini SX1 supercar to America for the five races in Salt Lake City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Southern California and Florida. The plan for this year is to try to understand the tracks out there and basically be ready for next season.
Rallycross is quite a specific discipline. It’s a race between six cars – all of which come with 600bhp and the potential for Formula One levels of acceleration – on a circuit which contains both gravel and Tarmac. You get phenomenal grip from the four-wheel drive on the asphalt, but then it can be pretty wild when you get to the gravel.
Six cars kick up huge amounts of dust and, if you’re not leading into that first corner, when you get to the dirt in the middle of the pack, you’re pretty much guaranteed not to able to see a thing. It’s really a strange sensation, but as your vision is blocked by the flying gravel and thick dust, you come to rely on other senses; you have an awareness
of where the other cars are (usually tapping wing mirrors or giving each other a nudge) and some degree of familiarity with the circuit.
It’s incredibly intense at those moments. You rely on your instincts, but you’re doing that at incredible speeds. I love it. There’s really no other motorsport quite like this one.
But, when you’ve been away from rallycross for a while, it can take time to get your eye in and your elbows out.
That’s really why we’re going to Catalunya this week. It’s so important to get back up to speed before we land into America. Once we’ve finished in Barcelona, the car will be shipped to the United States for the first Nitro round in September.
In terms of rallycross, 2021 is very much a season of building towards a hugely exciting all-electric race programme for 2022.
It’s vital we go to America to learn. The tracks out there are quite different to what we see in World Rallycross – with some of the biggest and gnarliest jumps you’ll ever see waiting for us out there. I can’t wait.
But first, it’s Barcelona this week. I’ve competed in World RX of Catalunya four times over the last three years and it’s where I scored my best ever result. It’s a track I really enjoy and one where the racing is always epic.