Champions and home heroes headline Hungary entry list

The entry lists have today been released for the opening round of the 2022 FIA European Rallycross Championship at Nyirád in Hungary next month (21-22 May) – featuring a star-studded line-up of title-winners and home heroes.

In the headlining Euro RX1 series, double champion Anton Marklund is chasing a third career crown in a SET Promotion Hyundai i20, but the Swede will face stiff opposition from a number of quarters, not least former Super1600 (now Euro RX3) champion Jānis Baumanis, who is heading back ‘home’ this year after rejoining forces with Hansen Motorsport at #YellowSquad. The Latvian is the highest-placed returning driver, having finished third in the standings in 2021.

Ulrik Linnemann – a perennial front-runner and multiple race-winner at Super1600 level over the past decade – will take to the track in a Linnemann Promotion Ford Fiesta, as Enzo Ide bids to put everything he learned alongside four-time world champion Johan Kristoffersson last year to good use in his EKS Audi S1.

Six-time Andros Trophy ice-racing king Jean Baptiste ‘JB’ Dubourg – whose Euro RX1 title bid last season was derailed by an arm-breaking accident at Lohéac – is back in a Peugeot 208, while reigning Euro RX3 champion Yury Belevskiy steps up in a Volland Racing A1, after stunning observers by racing to the runner-up spoils on his World RX bow at the Nürburgring five months ago.

ALL-INKL.COM Muennich Motorsport will field a brace of SEAT Ibizas for René Münnich and Mandie August, as Oponeo rejoins the fray with Ford Fiestas for Dariusz Topolewski and Marcin Gagacki. Former British champion Ollie O’Donovan will debut the new Proton Iriz in international competition, and will be accompanied by son Patrick, who wound up fourth overall in the inaugural campaign of RX2e.

Sivert Svardal – voted as ‘Cooper Tires Rookie of the Year’ in 2021 – is aiming to build upon the progress he made last season, as the indomitable Hervé Knapick returns at the age of 75. The majority of the partisan crowd’s support, meanwhile, will surely be reserved for the six homegrown drivers on the entry list, spearheaded by three-time European Autocross Champion Tamás Kárai, who will be eager to put on a spectacular show.

In Euro RX3, last season’s runner-up Kobe Pauwels is back with his eyes fixed firmly on the main prize after consistently taking the fight to Volland Racing team-mate Belevskiy in his maiden campaign of car racing competition. Behind the wheel of a similar Audi A1, Damian Litwinowicz will be aiming to stop him, however, as will Jan Černý, who performed giant-killing exploits with his Škoda Citigo in 2021.

Four Hungarians will also be in the field, led by Euro RX3 podium-finisher Zsolt Szíjj ‘Jolly’, while Portuguese duo João Ribeiro and Nuno Miguel Da Costa Araújo will head into battle at Nyirád after shining on home soil at Montalegre last October, the latter in particular impressing as he fought his way into the final.

Tickets for the race weekend can be purchased here