It was well known that Kristoffersson Motorsport wouldn’t bring one of their Volkswagen Polo RX1e example for nothing during the preseason and equivalence of technology tests before the FIA World Rallycross Championship season, and after only one round competed with the trusted Volkswagen Polo KMS 601 RX, the Swedish team had other plans in their minds and switched focus to the electric cars they have in their garage.
The decision to change machinery is backed by a new paragraph in the sporting regulations for the 2025 World RX season, stating that any team can switch technology only once during a season. KMS had the same three chassis that competed in the 2023 season stored in a container since the end of that year, and considering that RX1e was blocked from competing in that season due to repercution of the fire at the Special ONE Racing facilities at Lydden Hill, these cars not only weren’t raced, but they also haven’t received any updates or any fine tuning since then, meaning they are more crude in terms of balance of their axis compared to the Peugeot 208 RX1e or the PWR RX1e.
Based on their previous seasons, only KMS and AllInkl.com Münnich Motorsport have the right to make this change, since they are the only teams that have cars with internal combustion and electric power, although Münnich also stopped racing in the international stage with their SEAT Ibiza RX1e to focus entirely on their fleet of SEAT Ibiza Cupra RX.
Tommy Kristoffersson made it simple to understand, he wants the team to have the best tools for the job, and certainly the third place for Ole Christian Veiby and the underwhelming fifth place for the seven time World RX champion Johan Kristoffersson wasn’t exactly great news for the Volkswagen Polo KMS 601 RX, a recently updated chassis that had six World RX wins in its debut year, five of which with Kristoffersson.
From now on, it will be a race against time for KMS, because even though the Polo RX1e was incredibly dominant in its debut season with eight wins and another three wins in 2023 before RX1e was ruled out that season, it is a car that only the EoT parameters are known.
Despite the unknown variables at hand, KMS will align three Polo RX1es at Höljes on 6 July, with the chassis that went to Lousada being followed by the other two inactive cars. Kristoffersson and Veiby will once again have the company of Gustav Bergström, who was the third driver for KMS for a limited period in 2023 due to his commitments with the Porsche Carrera Cup Sweden. Bergström’s focus is certainly the GT World Challenge Europe season with WRT, but now he has more time to make it more than an one-off appearance, as only the Sprint Cup rounds at Misano and Valencia conflict with the World RX calendar, more specifically Nyirád and Istanbul, with a possible third clash depending on when the proposed World RX overseas round will be held.
PHOTO: Kristoffersson Motorsport
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