France’s Cyril Raymond returns to what he can consider his second home race of the season next week, the World RX of Canada at Trois-Rivieres.

GCK Academy’s French driver made his RX2 International Series debut (then called RX Lites) in a non-championship round at the North American circuit in 2015. He returned to take back to back titles in the FIA World Rallycross Championship’s official support category in 2016 and 2017, and this year is racing a Renault Clio RS RX for GCK in World RX. Not only as the place where he made his international debut, Canada is also like a second home race for Raymond as it is held in the French speaking Quebec region.

So far this season, Raymond has been the leading GCK Academy driver and is just four points in the World RX Drivers’ standings behind GC Kompetition driver and team owner Guerlain Chicherit. Fifth place in the final at Catalunya RX was Raymond’s best result so far as he has quietly gone about his business, making the semi-finals three times and scoring points in every round accept the latest event in Sweden, when he rolled his Clio after the turn three jump in the final qualifying race.

“I was disappointed after the roll, ending a weekend like that is frustrating. We still proved beautiful things with the Clio R.S. RX and found a lot of settings that allowed us to gain traction so it bodes well for the rest of the championship, although we couldn’t confirm this on dry conditions because of the rain all weekend making the track very slippery,” said Raymond after Holjes. “I have to work on being more consistent, I have the capacity and a lot of experience but it’s a World Championship, so I have to work on my mind to be more efficient because the potential is there, the Clio works much better and the starts are very good. Now there are four races left, we will have to really push to show the best possible results and all our potential, and ensure that the race Canada prepares us to be in great shape for France.”

Also in the GCK Academy team, Belgium’s Guillaume De Ridder has been plagued by bad fortune in 2019, but has shown good speed and is hoping that setup changes made to the Clio RS RX will make for a better round seven of World RX next week. “I’m hoping that the set-up changes we made will mean some good learnings for Canada.” De Ridder said. One of the three GCK Academy drivers, now including Lithuania’s Rokas Baciuska, will make his first start in Canada with the team’s Renault Megane RS RX after finishing in the first semi-finals at Holjes.