Australian F1 Grand Prix winner confirmed for Sydney Race of Champions
Today at 07:29 PM
David Coulthard is the third F1 driver confirmed among a star-studded line-up of international and local racing drivers at the first Race of Champions in Australia.
The Race of Champions will take place in Australia for the first time in March 2025 with former F1 driver David Coulthard confirmed among a line-up of some the world's best racing drivers battling for the 'Champion of Champions' title.
F1 champions, Bathurst and V8 Supercars champions, world and Australian rally championship winners and off-road and NASCAR legends will go head-to-head at the March 7-8 2025 Sydney event.
The Race of Champions (ROC) was established by former World Rally Championship (WRC) driver, Michele Mouton – the first woman to win a WRC round after winning the 1981 Sanremo Rally in Italy in an Audi Quattro.
The annual event pits racers from all walks of motorsport against each other in identical cars and – having been held in the UK, China, Germany, Thailand and Mexico – takes place in Sydney as the first event in both Australia and the southern hemisphere.
Competitors racing on a purpose-built side-by-side one-kilometre asphalt track at Accor Stadium at Sydney Olympic Park, around 20km west of the city centre.
Winner of the 2014 and 2018 ROC, Scottish Coulthard – who also won the 1997 and 2003 Australian Grands Prix at Albert Park, Melbourne, during his Formula One (F1) career – will join some of the world's most revered drivers in Sydney.
This includes two other Australian Grand Prix winners: F1 driver Valtteri Bottas – who won 10 Grands Prix while racing for Mercedes-Benz – and former ROC winner and four-time F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel.
Vettel took out the 2015 ROC but also paired up with countryman Michael Schumacher to win six consecutive years of the event's Nations Cup.
The Nations Cup sees drivers pair up based on nationality, with the two Germans enjoying the event's longest winning streak.
Vettel will team up with Mick Schumacher – son of Micheal, and a former F1 driver himself – in the hopes of stopping a three-peat by Norwegian father and son pairing of Petter and Oliver Solberg, who won in both 2023 and 2024.
Australians racing include reigning Supercars champion Will Brown, and his boss – seven-time Supercars champion, Bathurst winner and now-Triple Eight Race Engineering Managing Director Jamie Whincup.
Whincup and Brown's Red Bull-backed Supercars team made headlines ahead of last week's Bathurst 12 Hour by announcing a shock switch from racing the Chevrolet Camaro to the Ford Mustang for 2026.
Former Extreme E world champion and Australian Rally Champion Molly Taylor also stars in the line-up, along with winner of the gruelling Dakar rally Toby Price as local off-road legends.
They will be up against former ROC winner and nine-time WRC winner Sebastien Loeb, New Zealand's Hayden Paddon – a two-time European Rally Champion.
The United States will be represented by X-Games winner and rally champion Travis Pastrana – also known for his work with Ken Block on the ‘Gymkhana’ YouTube clips – and NASCAR champion Kurt Busch.
Previous ROC winners include rally greats Juha Kankkunen (1988 winner) Carlos Sainz (1995), Colin McRae (1988) and Tommi Makinen (2000).
The first ROC in 1988 featured every WRC title winner from 1979 to 1988 and while the event has expanded to drivers across all genres, the event is still largely dominated by rally drivers.
The 2024 ROC winner was Swedish WRC and rallycross driver Mattias Ekstrom, who finished tenth in a Red Bull Holden Commodore at Bathurst in 2013.
The first southern hemisphere Race of Champions takes place the weekend ahead of the 2025 Australian Formula One Grand Prix, which will be held on 14-16 March.
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