After a positive test at a regional rallycross in Hungary last month, the STARD-built Projekt E electric Ford Fiesta graduated to a more serious test. A quartet of these Project E machines raced against each other for the first time at Höljes Motorstadion during the Swedish round of the World Rallycross championships a few weeks ago. Ford invited Ken Block over to drive the new electric racer, and it’s safe to say he liked it, walking away with the race victory.
The four-lap plus a joker lap race put Ken very far out in the lead, taking the checkers almost 15 seconds clear of second place. His race victory time of 4:50.4 would have seen him finish ahead of Andreas Bakkerud, who finished 6th in the World RX Supercar finals with a race time of 5:00.8. Ken would not have been totally competitive in the Supercar final, as Mattias Eckström ran that race in a 4:28.9 time.
Consider first that Ken Block is not quite on the level of Eckström’s talent, and it becomes all the more impressive that Block was able to finish just 22 seconds slower than the Swedish champ.
Once the racing was over, however, Block got to have a whole hell of a lot of fun with the car on track. Just in 2020 alone, Block has already had an opportunity to race the Extreme E buggy, and hoon around in RTR’s ridiculous 894kW Mach-E, so maybe there is nobody better to evaluate the efficacy of an electric rallycross car.
After several failed attempts to shove his video co-host over with the front bumper of the car, Ken managed to figure out how to get the electric car’s throttle to modulate for a glorious low-speed doughnut. Then, once all that was out of the way, he cranked the wheel, matted the throttle, and let the little screamer eat. Yes, this 100 per cent electric car is 100 per cent ready to 100 per cent kill all tires.