Like
what Nissan did with its factory driver pool into sportscar racing,
Olsbergs MSE decided to not continue with all of its current
FIA World Rallycross Championship drivers as the team failed
to meet the good results of 2014 into the 2015 season and lost its
close connection to Ford this year. Olsbergs fans should worry at
this point, right? No, because what team owner Andreas Eriksson
has along him is a good amount of talent, even though most of them
are youngsters, like the new driver pair of the team.
Finnish
driver Niclas Grönholm and Swedish driver Kevin Eriksson
are incredibly young, with 19 and 18 years old respectively, what
means that Olsbergs MSE will have the youngest lineup of the
competition, but their records are well worth their seats into the
Ford Fiesta ST supercars.
Niclas
is the son of Marcus Grönholm, a WRC double champion and
fierce frontrunner and also has wins in rallycross, who will oversee
his son's spell into World RX. Niclas comes to the
international scene with mainly national experience from RallyX
Sweden and Rallicross Finland, but he also contested in RX
Lites and at Höljes for the World RX last year, coming really close
of getting a point, in 17th place. Due to his experience,
he knows the Ford Fiesta ST really well.
Kevin
Eriksson is the son of Andreas, the man behind the Olsbergs MSE
empire, which not only covers the rallycross supercars but also their
home built Supercar Lites, which became an opening door to
youngsters and newcomers like Kevin to drive supercars. Kevin is
coming full time to supercars after a title and a runner-up place in
the 2014 and 2015 RX Lites seasons, and recently he got the RallyX
On Ice title over RX Lites rival Thomas Bryntesson, also
in one of the OMSE's little monsters, outpacing guys like Patrik
Sandell, Richard Göransson, Sebastian Eriksson and Kevin's brother
Oliver.
The
new pair comes to replace Andreas Bakkerud, who went to Hoonigan
Racing Division, Reinis Nitiss, who went to Münnich Motorsport, and
reduces its program with the departure of Timur Timerzyanov to World
RX Team Austria.
This
is also the continuity of the rivalry of Eriksson with Kevin Hansen,
as the brother of Timmy Hansen also stepped up to supercars with the
Team Peugeot-Hansen.
PHOTO: FIA World Rallycross Championship
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