Race Of Champions is a motorsport competition where champions across different categories compete against each other to crown the ultimate champion of champions. In addition to the individual competition, the twenty drivers pair up and compete against other teams, to determine the fastest nation.
The tournament avoids the typical motorsport’s difficulty in determining who the fastest driver is due to different machinery. ROC provides everyone with the same track, with identical cars and equal training time. They compete in a knockout system using different types of machinery from buggies to fully electric cars.
History
The competition was founded almost 40 years ago, with the first edition held in Paris to celebrate Henri Toivonen, who died during a rally race in 1986. His Memorial Trophy is awarded to the winner of ROC to this day.
The motorsport legends who have competed in ROC include names like Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel (who hold the record for the number of Nation Cup wins together, with six victories) Valentino Rossi, Mick Doohan, Tom Christensen or Jimmie Johnson.
ROC has visited various countries across the globe, including the UK, China, Mexico, and Sweden, which hosted the last edition of ROC Snow + Ice in 2023. Last year’s event was supposed to be held in Sweden again, but it was canceled due to environmental issues.
ROC Sydney 2025
This year, the competition is moving to Australia. It will take place on March 7 and 8 at the Accor Stadium in Sydney. After the ROC Nations Cup, there will be the individual Race Of Champions the next day.
In addition to these categories, you can look forward to eROC too. eROC is a sim racing championship for amateur drivers, who are competing in eSports for less than a year. These drivers will be able to race against the champions present in Sydney.
In an exciting development, Race Of Champions has announced Pirelli as the official tyre supplier for the event. They will supply the vehicles with FIA World Rally Championship and GT Championship tyre range, marking a step forward for this competition.
Champions in Sydney
The full driver line up is usually announced in the last days leading to the event. You can always find all confirmed champions competing in this year’s ROC in a regularly refreshed chart below:
| Country | Drivers | |
| Germany | Sebastian Vettel | Mick Schumacher |
| Finland | Valtteri Bottas | Heikki Kovalainen |
| USA | Travis Pastrana | Kurt Busch |
| UK | David Coulthard | Max McRae |
| France | Sebastian Loeb | Victor Martins |
| Sweden | Johan Kristoffersson | Mattias Ekström |
| Norway | Petter Solberg | Oliver Solberg |
| Australia | Jamie Whincup | Molly Taylor |
| Toby Price | Will Brown | |
| New Zealand | Hayden Paddon | Louis Sharp |
Can anybody dethrone the reigning champions, Mattias Ekström and Team Norway? Tune in to find out and don’t miss any action from Sydney!