After a first foray into the RallyX championship at the opening stage of the 2024 season at Tierp in early May, the FC2 concept cars returned to action at Älvsbyn last weekend, the OMSE developed cars made quite an impression, to say the least.
With two cars in the hands of Oliver and Kevin Eriksson, the FC2s, still very much within their scheduled development phase, made the most of the initial days racing of the weekend’s two races to claim their maiden podium positions in their first real appearance in official competition.
Seventh in the intermediate standings on Saturday, Oliver Eriksson’s best performance came in Q2, when he posted the fourth-fastest time in the category. Consistent throughout Race 1, Oliver even managed to set the third fastest lap of Q1, while never leaving the top five in terms of pure speed.
His efficiency was confirmed in the final when he crossed the line in second place, just ahead of team-mate Kevin Eriksson, who took the opportunity to complete the overall podium of the weekend.
However, with the pace that Kevin Eriksson was setting during the course of the day, he would have hoped for a better result than third place at the end of the day. His more than impressive qualification pace against the Supercars, which resulted in the second fastest absolute time in Q2, he also set the second fastest lap of the race in Q3, while maintaining his position in the top three in terms of pure speed in both the semi-final and final.
With the second day looming, and further development changes being made to the cars overnight, the second day’s proceedings for the team were bought to an abrupt halt. Kevin Eriksson was forced to retire following a first corner race incident in Q1 which resulted in a red flag to recover the cars. Whilst the crashed FC2 was able to continue, the team took the decision to focus its attention on Oliver Eriksson confirming the current form of the FC2 cars.
Consistent in qualification, with three runs ending in the top five of the category on each occasion, Oliver Eriksson only just missing out on a second consecutive podium finish for the FC2 in the second final of the weekend with a fourth-place finish, but significantly made his mark on the statistics by setting the fourth fastest lap of the event.
These overall performances of the weekend were not to the displeasure of Olsbergs-MSE and of course to FirstCorner who are responsible for the sale of FC2 here in Europe and NEXT EVO in the USA.
Designed and developed to match the performance levels of classic Supercars, Kevin and Oliver Eriksson perfectly fulfilled the mission entrusted to them by Olsbergs-MSE within this continuing development programme.
Andreas Eriksson // CEO of Olsbergs-MSE
“We obviously needed to put our cars through their paces in official racing to analyse where we were effective and where we needed to make progress. We now have a more accurate picture of our product, which will enable us to continue our development work”
“Our goal for this first weekend was obviously to collect as much data as possible. We were able to take advantage of having two cars to move forward more quickly and test different things to get as much information as possible. In particular, we tried different engine maps to see how we could adjust our ‘push to pass’ and what reference power we should use next September when our FC2s will make their first official appearance in the Nitrocross Championship.”
“The data we collected showed us that we could have placed both cars on the top two steps of the podium in Race 1, which is a real achievement. However, the most important thing for us was to see the interest in our FC2 concept in the paddock. It’s great to see how our new FC2 platform is proving to be the ideal solution for many young drivers, who see it as the best way to become the future stars of rallycross.”
Kevin Morris // Sales Director of FIRST Corner
“We have stated from the very start of this programme that participation within this series formed a major part of the FC2 development programme as we work towards a fully developed car for the US Nitrocross series starting in September and a full out attack against the Supercars in this series next year.”
“We have come a long way in such a short period of time. Some would say its not good to carryout your development in public, but we disagree with that. Being in this series with the levels of competitiveness of the current Supercars provides us with the exact approach of development we need in the time scales we have available.”
“We are extremely happy with the results we have achieved this weekend, and we know there is more to come, but most significantly, is the interest that the FC2 car is continuing to generate within the paddock”
