The End of World RX — The Day Rallycross Shifted Its Centre of Gravity to Asia

The FIA World Rallycross Championship ended after the 2025 season. Its successor, the FIA European Rallycross Championship, opens the 2026 season as the sport's new pinnacle — but as the name makes clear, it is a European-only series. The calendar runs to six rounds, from the Latvia opener on May 9 to the finale at Lousada, Portugal on September 13. Every venue is within Europe.

Yet 2026's rallycross calendar does not close within European borders. On December 5–6, the newly created Rallycross World Cup takes place at the Jakarta International e-Prix Circuit in Indonesia. It is the first world-scale rallycross event ever held in Asia — and it arrives in the same year that the World RX era came to an end.

■ What Was World RX? — A Summary of Twenty Years

The direct predecessor of the FIA World Rallycross Championship was the European Rallycross Championship, which ran from 1993 across Europe. World RX was elevated to world championship status in 2014 — the year Petter Solberg, a former WRC champion, claimed the title — and from that moment the series became synonymous with the sport. Race durations of four to five minutes, dedicated mixed-surface circuits combining gravel and tarmac, and door-to-door contact racing at close quarters produced a spectator experience unlike anything else in motorsport.

At its peak between 2016 and 2018, World RX expanded significantly with the entry of Hyundai Motorsport as a works team. Porsche and Volkswagen-aligned programmes deepened their involvement, and cumulative viewership was reported in the tens of millions. Then the tide turned.