Champion hails promising talent during RX2e test day

Six drivers travelled to Spain’s Calafat Circuit to sample the ZEROID X1 at the end of last week, with Nils Andersson on coaching duties – and the reigning FIA RX2e Champion was impressed by what he saw.

Featuring on the FIA World Rallycross Championship support package, the all-electric FIA RX2e Championship is heading into its fourth campaign in 2024. So far, no fewer than 43 drivers have competed in the single-spec series, but after leading an all-Swedish top three lockout in the standings last year, Andersson recently joked that ‘we need to gather some more nationalities’. He will have been encouraged by what he witnessed at Calafat.

Representing a raft of different nationalities – only one of them Scandinavian – Clément Picard (BEL), Ellis Spiezia (USA), Frank Coll (ESP), Kalle Gothesson (SWE), Sara Kaluzinska (POL) and Vasileios Kyriazopoulos (GRC) all took to the wheel of the ZEROID X1, under the guidance and tuition of Andersson and fellow RX2e racer Pablo Suárez, a top six championship finisher in every season to-date.

The test was divided into ten five-lap runs, broken up by debriefs with the QEV engineers, video data and VBox analysis and set-up adjustments.

“A big thank you to QEV for the opportunity to test-drive an absolute beast of a car,” enthused Spiezia. “The whole team was great to work with and going sideways was exactly how I wanted to kick off the new year testing!”

Like his fellow try-outs, the American waxed lyrical about the power and instant torque of the RX2e car and improved his performance over the course of the day. Having kept a watchful eye throughout, Andersson was positive in his assessment of the sextet’s potential.

“For somebody testing the ZEROID X1 for the first time, the Calafat test days are really close to the real deal, and the perfect way to get a feel for the car and championship at a very affordable level,” he opined.  

“Some of these drivers were getting their first taste of an electric powertrain, and were able to experience how the regen works and play around with brake bias. They also learned how you can sacrifice a bit of corner entry speed to benefit exit speed thanks to the constant torque of the electric motors.

“I think it was a very useful and instructive day for them all, and there was certainly plenty of promise on display. Hopefully we will see at least a couple of them on the grid in RX2e this year.”