The FIA European Rallycross Championship returns to Irish soil this weekend when Mondello Park hosts Round 4 of the 2026 Euro RX series, marking the championship’s first visit to Ireland in more than three decades.
The event will see some of the biggest names in world rallycross tackle Mondello’s brand-new anti-clockwise rallycross track as eight-time world champion Johan Kristoffersson arrives in Kildare as the man to beat.
The Swede heads the championship standings after a dominant victory at Holjes in Sweden and has looked almost unstoppable throughout much of the campaign.
His chief challenger is Norway’s Andreas Bakkerud, a former European champion while fellow Norwegian Ole Christian Veiby is also in the hunt, sitting just behind Bakkerud in the standings
Finland’s Juha Rytkonen and Sweden’s Casper Jansson are also expected to challenge for the podium places on what promises to be one of the fastest circuits on the calendar
Irish hopes will centre on nine-time Irish rallycross champion and two-time European touring car champ Derek Tohill.
Competing as a wildcard entry, Tohill brings unrivalled experience of Irish rallycross with extensive knowledge of Mondello Park and is expected to compete in a Volkswagen Polo RX1-spec machine under the PartsforCars banner.
“It’s a dream come true, all my life I have been waiting on an event like this,” said Tohill speaking to RTÉ Sport.
“I would have been in the stand as kid over 30 years ago and I would have been quite emotional watching these cars, the power of them as a young kid was phenomenal and I would have dreamt one day could this be me.
“The Europeans is basically the world’s now because the world championship is no longer a thing so yeah it’s going to be the very best in the world of rallycross, many of which I would have competed with in the past but it’s a little while since I’ve competed in the European Championship.
“I’ve been competing in French Championship, British and Irish so really looking forward to getting back and having a shot at the Europeans.”
Derek Tohill, in his Ford Fiesta, ahead of Patrick O’Donovan, in his Proton Iriz at the 2023 Irish Rallycross Championship in Mondello
Another of the Irish contingent is Niall Murray who makes his RX1 Supercar debut this weekend.
Murray will compete in a KMS by Meunier Competition Volkswagen Polo RX1 Supercar.
While he previously raced high-performance GT and supercars internationally, this will be his first competitive outing in a 600bhp-plus RX1 rallycross supercar at this level.
Murray is no stranger to elite motorsport.
A multiple championship winner across karting, Formula Ford, touring cars and GT racing, he has claimed victories in some of the sport’s most prestigious events, including the Formula Ford Festival, Walter Hayes Trophy and the British Formula Ford Championship.
Ireland has nine drivers amongst the 25-car RX1 field, led by Patrick O’Donovan Tohill, Murray, Shane Murphy, Thomas J Graham, Gary Donoghue, John McCluskey and Michael Leonard all trying to make the most of home advantage.
Drivers will face a completely new challenge at Mondello, with organisers introducing a purpose-built anti-clockwise rallycross configuration.
Combining high-speed asphalt sections with technical gravel elements, the layout is expected to produce close racing, joker-lap strategies and plenty of overtaking
“Yeah they’ve changed it about just to make sure we don’t have too much home advantage,” laughed Tohill.
“We’ve had one event over the new layout at the British Championship round but these guys are so professional they don’t need time as they will know the track instantly so home advantage apart from the crowd being behind us is, technically it’s not there because they’re high level drivers.
“Rallycross is built for television, it’s short, sharp racing on gravel tarmac, sometimes with jumps. You have really quickfire races – six to eight cars on a four-to-six-lap race and you go through qualification heats into semi-finals and finals.
“Hopefully there will be a few Irish in the mix and we should get great support and big crowds and if the crowd can give that extra couple of horsepower to local drivers it’s going to be fantastic.”
Racing starts on Saturday with two qualification sessions for all competing classes with the remaining two qualifiers on Sunday followed by the stepladder finals.