And the closest FIA World Championship of 2019 is…

Last weekend, I visited the eighth round of the current FIA World Rallycross Championship season at Lohéac, in France. And I can confirm that reports of the championship’s self-destruction from the loss of their manufacturer entries, and loss of their shining star Johan Kristoffersson, the 2017–2018 champion, are greatly exaggerated — in fact, entirely mistaken.

At the end of the weekend, a victory for Timmy Hansen, racing for Team Hansen MJP in a Peugeot 208 RX, saw the Swede move to within two points of new championship leader Andreas Bakkerud, in fact tied in the standings with his brother and team-mate Kevin, meaning three drivers are separated by just two points with two rounds remaining.

At this point last year, Kristoffersson secured his title two race meetings before the end of the season, and eventually won 11 out of 12 events.

“Ah, but is it the same level”? You may say. Well, the loss of manufacturer money has taken away some of the development of the cars, the fact is these machines are at the peak of that development cycle anyway, and in fact new cars, such as the Prodrive-developed Renault Mégane RS, are starting to make in-roads.

While the loss of manufacturer moolah means some drivers have been forced to go fend for their racing fixes elsewhere, such as champion Kristoffersson, and his rivals Sébastien Loeb and Mattias Ekstrom — the rallycross mainstays and shining stars are still there — the Hansen brothers, Anton Marklund in the GC Kompetition Renault, Bakkerud, and his team-mate Liam Doran in the RX Cartel-run Audi S1s, Niclas Gronholm, Toomas Heikkenin and Timur Timerzyanov in the GRX Hyundais, and Timo Scheider in the Munnich Motorsport SEAT Ibiza, to name just a few.

The paddock itself scrubs up very nicely. The teams put on a professional appearance in the paddock, which is adorned with large hospitality tents and displays. The high-energy weekend is matched by its main sponsors, with energy drink brands, both top of the pile, such as Monster and Red Bull, or establishing brands such as Xcite, splashed over the cars — with Monster Energy also the principal sponsor of the series.

The premise that rallycross is a five-minute affair is somewhat a fallacy — that’s the end game only.

A rallycross weekend is a wall-to-wall racing festival.

With the four-stage, five-part qualifying heats for “World RX”, and then the same again for the supporting European Rallycross Championship — effectively the same cars taking part in a reduced calendar, and also the RX2 “lite” cars and Super 1600 rallycross championship, the weekend is a never-ending parade of mini-races — with just a short morning practice session for the cars which enables them to kick up the dust as the capacity crowd assembles and fills up the arena.

So while a sports car race could be contrasted with a good movie — with a few intertwining themes, plots and twists, with many different characters of various depths and intrigue, with the story unravelled over the course of a few hours — a World Rallycross event in contrast is more like a binge session of a Netflix box set.

They’re short, easy, uncomplicated watches — and as soon as one episode is finished, autoplay is lining up the next one for you on the pre-grid. While a heat on its own, there’s not much to it in terms of plot value, but as a whole, there’s a complicated story in there across the whole set, as drivers effectively jockey themselves to both get into, and be in the best position for the final.

In the end, what you need is a good show, close and competitive racing, and a tight championship — the key three ingredients that any motorsport series wants, and it’s clear that the FIA World Rallycross Championship has all three this year.