The motorsport highlight of the season is traditionally the “Race of Champions”, and this year it was on the beautiful Caribbean island of Barbados. The stars of international motorsports met there this past weekend to decide who would be the “Champion of Champions” – the best national team and the best overall driver. And just as it has been since 2008, the “ROC Edition” KTM X-BOW was in the middle of the action and as always, ‘READY TO RACE’. With around 270hp from the 2.0 TFSI engine from Audi the KTM X-BOW was the second fastest car at the Race of Champions after the Audi R8 LMS on the parallel Race of Champions racetrack that was especially built for the event at the “Bushy Park Barbados” Raceway.

“Nations Cup”
Action began as always on Saturday with the “Nations Cup”, which in previous years was almost always won by Team Germany with Sebastian Vettel and Michael Schumacher. This year, because of reasons already well known there was no German team but instead all the riders held up a banner with best wishes for the recovery for Germany’s record-holding world champion Michael Schumacher.

In the semifinal it was on the one hand “Team Nordic” with Le Mans legend Tom Kristensen and Rallycross World Champion Petter Solberg against “Team France” with Formula 3 Champion Esteban Ocon and Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean. In the other semi it was “Team Scotland” with Williams test driver Susie Wolff and Formula 1 legend David Coulthard against local heroes Dane Skeete and Rhett Watson from “Team Barbados”. The latter had already ensured boundless celebrations from the local fans when they won against teams from Jamaica, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago in the first ever “ROC Caribbean”.

But for the local heroes it all came to an end in the semifinal when the Wolff/Coulthard duo advanced to the final. The Kristensen/Solberg combination also advanced when they left no chance for the French team to make the final. Then it was nothing less than pure excitement. Susi Wolff had to concede defeat to Tom Kristensen while David Coulthard left no chances for Petter Solberg. So it was left to Kristensen to win against Coulthard in the deciding race, and the nine-time Le Mans winner managed to do so.

“Champion of Champions”
On Sunday it was all about deciding who was going to emerge as the best driver. In the end it was David Coulthard who gave an impressive performance by not losing any of his races before going on to win the final against Germany’s new Mercedes up-and-coming talent Pascal Wehrlein. The competition however was particularly strong, especially from F3 driver Esteban Ocon and the US fraction around Robby Gordon and Indy 500 winner Ryan Hunter-Ray, who for a long time looked like they would be candidates to win the Race of Champions.

But in the end it was Coulthard who prevailed against all of his opponents, driving, among other cars, also the KTM X-BOW. It was Coulthard who represented the views of all participating drivers at the event, saying of the new location: “It was a fantastic weekend. A huge thank you to the wonderful people of Barbados and the entire ROC Team. It feels particularly great to have celebrated a victory here because I am actually also retired. It was an honor to win against a future star like Pascal. We don’t have to worry because apparently the future of motorsport is in good hands. I think I can now rest assured and order a rum punch!”

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