After having delighted the eyes and ears of the fans during the last few seasons with his impressive Mazda RX-8, Marcus Norman has decided to switch to a brand new Mercedes CLK. A weapon that the driver from Luleå intends to place among the front runners this season.
Limited to two minor appearances in Höljes and Strängnäs last season, Marcus Norman didn’t get the chance to repeat his double podium and victory achieved on the Finnish Oulu Zone circuit in 2021 while he was still driving his spectacular Mazda RX-8.
“The Mazda was a car that worked extremely well on the asphalt track like Oulu Zone, but it was a bit more complicated on other types of circuits. Nevertheless, even if this car had a lot of potential, it was already planned since the end of 2021 that we would move on to something else, says Marcus Norman.
“For my part, I had always had the desire to build a Mercedes for Rallycross. I did a lot of research until I found the perfect car, which then went to the Tiger Motorsport and Fordonsservice workshops in Kalix.
One thing that is for sure is that my first race behind the wheel of this car at the end of last season in Strangnas made me realize how extremely well designed this Mercedes is.”
“Every detail has been thought out and considered and you can see that in the way the car handles. The chassis is perfectly balanced. Now I just need to get a little more mileage out of the car to understand how it works and to feel completely confident.
As always, Marcus Norman is expected to delight the audience again with the famous Wankel engine.
“The engine in the Mazda was a Billet 20 B three-rotor block that we then put in the Mercedes at the end of last season. The only difference was that we added a turbocharger to it, which allowed us to reach the 600 horsepower barrier. So we had a crazy package. Nevertheless, for this season, we have developed a brand new engine still based on the Billet 20 B three-rotor block.”
“However, this time we have gone for a much lighter package and some small improvements and we have moved away from the turbo to a naturally aspirated engine which will save a lot of weight in the front end and make us more efficient in the rear end. I am convinced that this will allow us to obtain a completely different dynamic in terms of behavior. As for the rest, we are working on a new Wankel engine which we will test at the end of the championship”.
In other words, Marcus Norman has some legitimate ambitions as he prepares to return to the RallyX championship next weekend on the Danish circuit of Nysum.
“The level is very high in Open 2WD. There’s no doubt about that. However, if we can make it work the way we want it to, I’m hopeful that we can compete at the top. On my side, I have high ambitions for this new season. It’s clear that I’m not coming to make the number but to win”.
Although Marcus Norman recognizes that it will not be easy to beat the favorites, he intends to give his loyal colleague Simon Tiger and his formidable BMW M3 a run for their money.
“It won’t be easy to beat Simon Tiger because he is extremely fast, but I can promise him that he will get his money’s worth this year. If we can be reliable, I know we have the speed to cause him problems,” says Marcus Norman.
Especially skilled at turning up the heat, Norman is not afraid to take Simon Tiger’s competitive spirit to task.
“On the Rallycross level, we work together with Simon. We can almost say that we are teammates. Off the track, we are also very good friends. We have known each other for a long time. Simon lives only a few kilometers away from me so it’s not uncommon for him to visit me for a match of ping-pong and as far as I can tell, he always loses to me. Unless it’s the other way around and my memory tends to fail me in this aspect”.
As you can see, the game has only just begun in the spectacular Open 2WD category.
