You remember Guerlain Chicherit, don’t you? He’s the
competitive skier turned rally driver who backflipped a Mini a few years back.
Well, this is his new ride. It’s a Renault Megane RS, but it’s not been
prepared by Renaultsport. Instead, it’s been developed by the motorsport
consultants at Prodrive specifically for rallycross racing.
Apparently Chicherit and Prodrive weren’t ready to
show the final design to the public just yet, though. So when it came time for
the test at Silverstone, they wrapped it in camouflage – a rather eye-seering
orange, black, and white combo, at that.
We’ll have to wait a little
longer to see the rally machine unveiled in full. After that, it’ll be up to
Chicherit and his teammate, and fellow Frenchman, Jérôme Grosset-Janin to make
the most of their new ride in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. Neither
has won a world rallycross event to date, but Grosset-Janin did win a European
championship round in a Peugeot a few years back.
They’ll have some stiff competition this season.
Petter Solberg is back with a new Volkswagen Polo R, Mattias Ekström has an
upgraded Audi S1, the Grönholms are bringing a new Hyundai i20 and WRC all-time
record man Sebastian Loeb will be competing in a Peugeot 208. And those are but
a few of the 18 Supercar entries lined up for this season, which kicks off at
Catalunya in just a couple of weeks.
