Mikko Hirvonen has said that he won’t be making a move into rallycross “in the near future”, despite recently testing the JRM Mini Countryman RX at Silverstone.
The Finn, who finished second to Sebastien Loeb in the World Rally Championship four times between 2008 and 2012 drove the car at the media launch for the new SpeedMachine festival event, sparking rumours of a change of discipline for the driver who moved from rally to rally raid in 2016.
“Maybe not the near future,” said Hirvonen when asked about the possibility of a future in rallycross. “I still have plans to commit to the programme with Dakar so that will take enough of my time and I don’t want to commit myself in too many things at the same time”
“That’s still the plan but then you never know what happens after that,” he added.
Hirvonen was one of the first drivers to sample the new rallycross track at the home of the British Grand Prix, and immediately picked up on the slow nature of the course laid out over the venue’s smaller Stowe Circuit.
“I would hope to maybe have a little bit faster track, but then again I wouldn’t know how it would be for the spectators,” said the former Ford and Citröen man. “It’s a little bit slow and technical as it is, maybe there’s more fighting and cars would be running more in a pack so maybe it’s more fun for the spectators, but purely from a driving point of view I always want to go faster.”
