RoC News: Full driver line-up for ’25 Race of Champions revealed

The final field for the 33rd edition of the Race Of Champions (RoC) is “locked and loaded” for Sydney’s Accor Stadium on March 7-8, and it is one of the most competitive ever.

No less than 10 of the star drivers who competed in the last ROC Sweden by the Arctic Circle will be making the 15,000km trip south for the first ever ROC World Final in the Southern Hemisphere.

The field will include no less than four-time F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel, F1 legend and two-time Australian Grand Prix winner David Coulthard, current F1 gun Valtteri Bottas, nine-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb, 11-time X-Games Gold Medalist Travis Pastrana and NASCAR legend Kurt Busch.

There will also be Team Australia Supercars headed by seven-time Supercars champion Jamie Whincup and reigning champion Will Brown and Team Australian Off-Road which is made up of rally ace Molly Taylor and two-time Dakar winner Toby Price.

Third generation Scottish rally driver Max McRae and young French F2 star Victor Martins are the final two drivers to be confirmed for the 20-driver field today.

McRae, 20, will partner F1 legend Coulthard at Team Great Britain for the ROC Nations Cup on Friday night, March 7 while Martins will team with no less than nine-time World Rally Champion Loeb for Team France.

The McRae name is no stranger to Race Of Champions with Max’s famous uncle, Colin McRae winning the ROC ‘Champion of Champions’ title in 1998, and having been the teammate of Coulthard several times in the past.

Max’s father, Alister, actually lost the final of the ROC to his brother Colin at Gran Canaria in 1998.

Max, who won the ERC Rally Hungary and Rally Ceredigion in the Junior ERC and Rally4 category, is no stranger to Australia having lived in Perth for many years and competed in the Australian Rally Championship.

Colin and Alister both drove at World Rally Champion level with the former winning the WRC title in 1995, while their father Jimmy (Max’s grandfather) won a record five British Rallying Championships in the 1980s.

This year Max is tackling his first full British Rally Championship (BRC) campaign and is aware of the weight of expectation on his shoulders with eight titles (five for Jimmy, two for uncle Colin and one for father Alister), already in the trophy cabinet.

Martins, 23, had a successful karting career and worked his way through the junior open-wheel ranks before joining ART Grand Prix in 2020 and winning the Formula Renault Series.

He joined MP Motorsport the following year and finished fifth in FIA Formula 3 Championship before re-joining ART Grand Prix the following year and clinching the title.

He finished fifth and seventh in the last two F2 championships and will start among the favorites for this year’s title chase which starts at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne the weekend after the ROC event.

There will be nine countries represented in the Nations Cup including Australia, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Great Britain, New Zealand, USA and Finland.

The ROC teams and drivers will all go head-to-head on a spectacular $A2 million side-by-side 1km asphalt track which will commence its eight-day construction later this week.

The unique venue will be hand crafted by a team of local and international engineers to ensure maximum speed and entertainment for the anticipated 50,000-strong crowd.

The Race Of Champions comes two weeks after the weekend’s 2025 Supercars opener at Sydney Motorsport Park and one week before the opening round of the F1 World Championship in Melbourne (March 13-16), creating a massive month of motorsport in Australia.

2025 ROC NATIONS CUP – FINAL TEAMS LINE-UP

Team Germany

Sebastian Vettel (GER) – 4-time Formula 1 World Champion

Mick Schumacher (GER) – FIA F2 and F3 Champion, Former F1 driver. Current WEC Driver

Team Australia Supercars

Jamie Whincup (AUS) 7-time Supercars Champion

Will Brown (AUS) – 2024 Supercars Champion (AUS)

Team Australia Off-Road

Molly Taylor (AUS) – Australian Rally Champion & 2021 and 2024 Extreme E Champion

Toby Price (AUS) – 2 X Dakar winner on Bikes, 2024 Baja 500 winner in Truck

Team New Zealand

Hayden Paddon (NZ) – 2023 & 2024 European Rally Champion, seven-time NZ Rally Champion

Louis Sharp (NZ) – 2024 GB3 Champion, 2023 British F4 Champion

Team USA

Travis Pastrana (USA) – 11-time X-Games Gold Medalist, 6-time Rally America Champion, Nitrocross Champion

Kurt Busch (USA) – 2004 NASCAR Champion, 2017 Daytona 500 winner

Team Norway (Defending ROC Nations Cup Champions)

Petter Solberg (NOR) – Rally World Champion and 2-time Rallycross World Champion

Oliver Solberg (NOR / SWE)* – 2024 WRC2 runner-up, Winner 2025 WRC2 Rally Sweden

* Oliver will represent Norway in ROC Nations Cup / Sweden in Race Of Champions

Team Sweden

Johan Kristoffersson (SWE) – 7-time FIA World Rallycross Champion,Extreme e Champion

Mattias Ekström (SWE) – 2-time DTM Champion, Rallycross World Champion, 4-time ROC Champion (including Title holder ROC 2023)

Team France

Sebastien Loeb (FRA) – 9-time Rally World Champion, 4-time ROC Champion

Victor Martins (FRA) – 2022 F3 Champion, 2020 F Renault Champion. ART F2 Driver 2025.

Team Great Britain

David Coulthard (UK) – 13-time Formula 1 Grand Prix Winner

Max McRae (UK) – 2024 ERC Rally Hungary and Rally Ceredigion winner in the Junior ERC and Rally4 category

Team Finland

Valtteri Bottas (FIN) – 10-time Formula 1 Grand Prix Winner

Heikki Kovalainen (FIN) – Formula 1 Grand Prix Winner and ROC Champion