Andréa Bénézet clinched the inaugural FIA Euro RX4 European Championship at the Lousada finale on 13 September 2026. Third place in his Renault Clio was enough to crown the Frenchman as the category’s first ever champion — a title that landed exactly 25 years after his father’s own European rallycross crown.
A final decided in the first corner
The decisive race escaped both title contenders almost at once. Bénézet and rival Filip Melon clashed hard through the opening turns, and China’s Haotian Deng slipped past to seize a lead he never lost. Deng became the first driver from his nation to win an international FIA rallycross event, with 14-year-old Albert Ako Kokk taking second.
Behind them, Bénézet calculated what was needed. Melon had applied fierce pressure all Sunday, winning Q2 and Q3, but a fifth-place finish left the door open.
The long shadow of a father’s feat
Bénézet arrived in Portugal atop the standings with 96 points to Melon’s 72. He had won the season opener in Riga and inherited a Mondello Park victory, while Melon answered with wins in Hungary and Sweden.
Nearly 15,000 spectators filled the Circuito Internacional de Lousada across three days. The double-header weekend also staged the championship’s first night race, adding a fresh milestone to the series’ history even as an older family story was quietly renewed.
“I can’t describe this feeling”
After the coronation, Bénézet was visibly moved. “I don’t have words, because this means a lot,” he told reporters. “It happens 25 years after my father became European Champion. We had a difficult season. Yesterday was one of the hardest days of my short career and today, thanks to these guys, we are European Champions.”
The title does not merely open a new line in the record books. It threads one name through two generations of European rallycross, a quarter of a century apart.
