WRX
17 Apr 2019
Mattias Ekstrom will return to the World Rallycross championship for a one-off appearance at World RX of Benelux at Spa-Francorchamps next month.
The 2016 world champion withdrew from the series at the end of last season following Audi’s decision to pull the plug on its backing for his EKS team. EKS has gone on to lend support to the new Monster Energy RX Cartel team, but Ekstrom has remained on the sidelines.
With no current-spec Audi S1 supercars available for Ekstrom’s outing, he will instead race the exact car he drove to the 2016 title, albeit run by the JC Raceteknik team which will be making its World RX bow at Spa.
“Being on the sofa at home watching Abu Dhabi I started to imagine racing again and going through Eau Rouge at 200km sideways,” he said. “It started to become very tempting. I asked Joel [Christoffersson, JC Raceteknik owner] if he was interested that I could use my old championship-winning car.”
“If that wouldn’t have been the case I think I wouldn’t have done it. It will be nice to just to go to do a race for fun and enjoy it, because when you do a sport at factory level you have responsibility and you’re obliged to a lot,” he added. “When you go there for the enjoyment, still for the fans and to put on a good show, for sure I will want to win the race no discussion, but it’s way different to do a wildcard entry verses a full championship.”
Ekstrom will race the car that he won the 2016 world championship in – Credit: World RX Media
Also returning to World RX at Spa will be Joni Wiman, in what will be his first top-level rallycross start in over two years.
Wiman will race a third Hyundai i20 for Gronholm RX. The car has already showed strong pace this season, winning on the road in Abu Dhabi in the hands of Niclas Gronholm, who was later demoted to second place.
The Fin dominated the 2013 GRC Lites series, winning every round. He graduated to the supercars class the following season and once again look the title, despite failing to win a final.
He remained in the US-based series until 2016. He hasn’t competed internationally since the 2016 GRC campaign but has raced in Scandinavia.
His only previous World championship outing came in 2014 when he took part in the Canadian round of the season for Olsbergs MSE.
Wiman on his way to claiming the 2014 GRC title – Credit: Garth Milan/Red Bull Content Pool
