Swedish giants join forces into new VW RX team

The 2015 season was somewhat good for the squads that compete in the FIA World Rallycross Chmapionship with the Volkswagen Polo RX supercar, with two wins grabbed by the hands of Johan Kristoffersson and Toomas Heikkinen, as well a bunch of podium finishes thanks to the two mentioned plus the one-off surprise Tanner Foust. Now the story will be a little bit different, with Marklund Motorsport and Volkswagen Team Sweden joining forces to bolster the chances for the VW side.

In na announcement made this Friday (11) morning at the Swedish capital, Stockholm, in partnership with Volkswagen Sweden, the new team will be known as Volkswagen RX Sweden, and will compete with a pair of Polo RX models like both VW Team Sweden and Marklund Motorsport did in the past years. As the joint effort will be limited to two full-time entries, the drivers selected for the task will be Johan Kristoffersson and Anton Marklund, with Jan Marklund and former rallycross driver Tommy Kristoffersson in the command of the team.

The 2015 season was of a huge contrast between the Volkswagen RX Sweden drivers. Kristoffersson had impressive performances that led to two fourth place finishes, five podiums and a win at Portugal, sitting in third in the drivers standings, behind only of Timmy Hansen and the champion Petter Solberg. Marklund drove for another strong Swedish squad, EKSRX, but was unable to match the results of his team-mate and owner Mattias Ekström, improving only at the last rounds of the championship, as his fourth place at Franciacorta, in Italy, was his best finish, along with a sixth place finish at Istambul, in Turkey.

The Idea is to build and prepare the new Polo RX cars at the current Marklund Motorsport headquarters in Boliden, in the north of the Swedish land, but as the new season gets closer, all the work will be done into the Volkswagen Team Sweden base at Arvika, in the southern portion of the country.

PHOTO: Marklund Motorsport