Tohill to miss British World RX round to focus on Euro RX campaign

Rallycross Supercar racer Derek Tohill has made the difficult decision to withdraw from the fourth round of the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Lydden Hill this weekend (May 28 – 29).

Two-time European Rallycross TouringCar Champion Tohill had entered his first World RX event since November 2014 at Lydden Hill, with the intention of getting additional seat time in PFCRX’s new 600bhp Ford Fiesta Supercar, but will instead use the time to prepare for the next round of the FIA European Rallycross Championship in Hell, Norway (June 11 – 12).

The PFCRX squad made its return to international rallycross at the opening round of Euro RX in Belgium earlier this month and qualified for the semi-finals, finishing 12th overall.

The result secures the team an entry to the second round of the series, racing as a non-permanent entry in 2016, the first year in a multi-year programme for the project.

Derek Tohill | Driver | Ford Fiesta #111

“We have a hell of a lot of work to do to the Supercar after Belgium so we’ve decided to concentrate on being as organised as possible before the next Euro RX race in Hell. We’ve not been part of the European Championship for almost three years now and there have been a lot of positive significant changes and developments since we last participated. These changes require some more time to prepare, develop and test our new car.

We need to learn how to get the most out of our new package and the larger team we now have. Personally I also need to be more focused on my driving and trust the team to have everything else in place so I can get the most out of myself and the car. The team is working hard with its partners to continue building on our strengths, we have a great group of people but we know that being competitive in European Rallycross requires a huge amount of hard work and development. Everything needs to happen naturally and eventually everything becomes second nature, we know this takes time to happen. We need to be patient and build some momentum step-by-step in a methodical manner. Our aim is to try and get some testing in a non-race environment as soon as possible, in the mean time; we look forward to returning to Hell.It shows the strength of the European Rallycross Championship that non-permanent entries are far from guaranteed this season and the fact we have secured an entry for Norway as the best non-permanent finisher in Belgium is great for PFCRX. Hopefully another strong result in Norway should see us in for the year.
I would like to thank the team, our partners and our supporters for their continued support.”

FIA European Rallycross Championship Points | After round 1

1 Kevin Hansen 27
2 Jerome Grosset-Janin 27
3 Tord Linnerud 23
4 Joni-Pekka Rajala 21
5 “Csucsu” 16
6 Tommy Rustad 16
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12 Derek Tohill 7