WRX drivers ready for ‘astonishing’ Hong Kong street circuit: ‘It will bite’

Kristofferson’s only championship contender, Kevin Hansen, spoke to Motor Sport – or rather shouted – over the rumble of construction vehicles still loading in materials and shovelling the requisite dirt jumps into place.

Saturday’s action is preceded by a race to finish the circuit with containers swinging across the paddock and the finishing touches being put to hospitality boxes.

The 25-year-old Hansen conforms to off-road Scandinavian-type by being predictably placid about the fact that currently the on-track jeopardy is mainly limited to whether they lay the aggregate in time, but he’s still revelling in his best ever WRX season.

“I’m trying to focus on my own thing,” Hansen says. “Johann is very far ahead and will 99.9% win the title – that’s fair play to him, he and his team have been great.

“I think this has been my best year so far so it’s a really nice feeling coming to the end of ’23.”

This is unfamiliar territory in every sense of the phrase for the championship which has managed to find the one speck of ground in the Asian peninsula not covered by high-rise buildings. The Central Harbourfront area the track sits on is thought to be one of the most expensive bits of real estate in the whole city.

It’s a long way from mud-splattered venues such as the UK’s Lydden Hill or Hell (in Norway), with WRX looking to expand by taking its product to the people through street races – and doing this so in markets it has never gone to before such as South-East Asia.

The idea has been tried before: the now-defunct Global Rallycross series ran street races of a sort at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale and Belle Isle in Detroit, and the X Games ran a race on streets in LA in 2012.

None of these were quite as full-blooded as WRX’s Far-Eastern attempt this year, with the world championship itself last running on public roads when it encompassed a few suburban streets at 2019’s Trois-Rivières round.

“I think the main difference [from what drivers expected] is that there’s so much gravel really, in a city centre [race] where it’s also street racing,” says Hansen.

“But the two long straights on tarmac makes the biggest difference. You have to thread the needle everywhere and take some risks which is really cool.”

Also competing will be Klara Andersson – who last year became the first woman to score a podium in WRX – and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinksy, who this year finished third in a second-tier RX2e championship which now has a 40% female grid.

The Hong Kong event is thought to be a toe in the water with more potential street races mooted in the future, as the championship looks to recreate the recent F1 model of complementing classic venues with inner-city locations like Miami and next weekend’s Las Vegas GP.

However, a stormy cloud hangs over proceedings in Victoria Harbour due to recent events in July at what was supposed to a glorious homecoming at one of the spiritual centres of rallycross, Lydden Hill.

A battery on the Special One Racing Lancia tribute car of Sébastien Loeb caught fire on the Friday of the weekend, the devastating blaze which ensued destroying his team’s entire equipment. The WRC legend described the fire to Motor Sport as “brutal”.

As a result, the series has had to abandon its new-for-this-year RX1e cars after just three events – temporarily at least — with powertrain manufacturer Kreisel not yet announcing what the root cause of the issue was nor a solution for next season.

To finish the season, drivers in the top class have been competing with the less powerful second-tier RX2e car, which have been shipped to Hong Kong. With all cars using the same chassis as well as powertrains, it does have the effect of making the racing even closer than in RX1e, where powertrains are the same but each team has its own chassis.

Asked whether he was confident about the future of the series in light of the information vacuum, Kristofferson replied with a succinct “No”. Special One Racing, unhappy with the lack of findings since the event, declined an invitation to participate in Hong Kong even with cars provided for it.

But Hansen – ever the upbeat spokesperson for the series – feels positive a solution will be found.

“I’m optimistic,” he says. “Everybody wants to race our own cars again. I think we’ll come to a good conclusion and future for rallycross.

“[It was] the first time for a fire like that, in a new era of motor sport, things will change from that for sure. I think it’s just an exciting time, without saying anything more than that.”

That the championship has decided to press on and run its final showpiece event demonstrates its importance to the sport – something emphasised by Hansen.

“I think this is maybe the biggest break that we’ve had since becoming a world championship [in 2014],” he says.

“It really is an astonishing location – it’s the first time that we pulled off something like this, something people have dreamt of for such a long time.

“Formula 1, Formula E, touring cars have city centre races – it’s different when it’s rallycross because it’s such an ‘arena sport’ and you get it [here] so compact and extreme.

“You can spread a message around the town which doesn’t disturb them, but people are really able to come in, have a look and experience it in a great way.”

By hanging its hat on Hong Kong, Hansen believes WRX is indicating its potential direction in years to come: “I think for the future we’ll see more city centre races on this side of the world but also in Europe.

“It’s perfect for the sport and perfect for manufacturers – we need to come to the fans in a completely different way rather than just going to faraway races like Höljes and Lohéac.”