Opel Takes European Rally Junior Championship with Calle Carlberg

• Barum Czech Rally Zlín: Opel Junior Carlberg clinches the title early at the penultimate round of the season
• Successful ADAC Opel Rally Junior Team: Sixth European Championship title in nine years
• Talent factory: ADAC Opel Electric Rally Cup ‘powered by GSE’ as a springboard for young rally drivers

Opel has reaffirmed its supremacy in the Junior European Rally Championship (JERC), which has lasted for a decade. At the Barum Czech Rally Zlín in the Czech Republic, the Opel Junior and 2023 ADAC Opel Electric Rally Cup ‘powered by GSE’ overall winner Calle Carlberg (25) takes the European Championship title early at the penultimate round of the season. It is already the sixth Junior European Championship title win for the brand with the Blitz after Emil Bergkvist (Sweden, 2015), Marijan Griebel (Germany, 2016), Chris Ingram (England, 2017), Martins Sesks (Latvia, 2018) and Laurent Pellier (France, 2022).

Opel is thus once again proving the success of the concept for promoting young rally talents staged together with the ADAC. No other programme can boast such a track record in the last decade. Since 2013, the champions of the former ADAC Opel Rallye Cup and the ADAC Opel Electric Rally Cup ‘powered by GSE’ – the world’s first electric rally one-make cup, which has been held since 2021 – have automatically been promoted to the ADAC Opel Rally Junior Team where they put their undoubted skills to the test in the Corsa Rally4 in the Junior European Championship. This year, Carlberg and his Austrian teammate Luca Pröglhöf, the 2023 and 2024 Electric Cup champions, set the standards in the field of the continent’s best junior rally drivers.

At the finish in Zlín, the new European champion Calle Carlberg was almost at a loss for words: "This is the best day of my life. A dream has come true. To have won this title together with Opel is something very special for me. The support I have received from Opel in recent years is difficult to put into words. Without Opel, I wouldn’t be here now. I can only thank everyone who has accompanied me on this incredible journey"

Opel Motorsport boss Jörg Schrott praised all those involved: "We had the best driver in Calle, the best team in Manfred Stohl’s team and the fastest car in the strong field of Europe’s best rally talents in the Corsa Rally4. This sixth European Championship title is clear proof of the high level at which the ADAC Opel Rally Junior Team has been operating for a decade. The fact that we have once again succeeded in guiding a champion from our one-make cup to the European Championship title proves the consistency and high level of youth development that Opel is the only automobile manufacturer to pursue with such consistency and effectiveness. My thanks go to all those involved. The sixth JERC title makes us proud and is both recognition and incentive for the future"

The finale of the Junior European Rally Championship 2025 will be held from 3 to 5 October as part of the Rally Croatia around the Croatian capital Zagreb.