Mattias Ekström (born 14 July 1978 in

Falun Falun () is a city and the seat of Falun Municipality in Dalarna County, Sweden, with 37,291 inhabitants in 2010. It is also the capital of Dalarna County. Falun forms, together with Borlänge, a metropolitan area with just over 100,000 inhabitan ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

) is a racing driver from

. He competed in the

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM, German Touring Car Masters) is a grand touring car series sanctioned by ITR e.V. who have been affiliated to the DMSB- FIA since 1984. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe. The s ...

for

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. As a subsidiary of its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. ...

from 2001 until his retirement in 2018, and has been competing in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, also for Audi, since its inception in 2014. He is a FIA World Rallycross Champion, a two-time DTM champion and a three-time winner of the

Race of Champions The Race of Champions (ROC) is an international motorsport event held at the end/start of each year, featuring some of the world's best racing and rally drivers. It is the only competition in the world where stars from Formula One, World Ral ...

Career

Ekström debuted in karting in 1993. The next years he competed at the Renault 5 Turbo Cup, winning the championship in 1996. The driver progressed to the Swedish Touring Car Championship in 1997, finishing runner-up with a Volvo 850. In 1998 he drove a

Ford Mondeo The Ford Mondeo is a large family car manufactured by Ford since 1993. The first Ford model declared as a " world car", the Mondeo was intended to consolidate several Ford model lines worldwide (the European Sierra, the Telstar in Asia and Aus ...

, claiming four podiums. Ekström won the 1999 championship driving an

Audi A4 The Audi A4 is a line of compact executive cars produced since 1994 by the German car manufacturer Audi, a subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group. The A4 has been built in five generations and is based on the Volkswagen Group B platform. The first ...

quattro. He switched rides again in 2000, finishing third with a factory Volvo S40. In 2001, Ekström joined the Abt Junior team to compete at the

. Driving Audi TT, he finished 8th in his debut season, third in 2002, and fourth in 2003. In 2004, Ekström won the

2004 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters The 2004 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters was the eighteenth season of premier German touring car championship and also fifth season under the moniker of Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters since the series' resumption in 2000. There were 10 championship ra ...

, defeating Mercedes rivals

Gary Paffett Gary Paffett (born 24 March 1981 in Bromley) is a British racing driver. Having become a household name in the DTM, following fifteen years in the series and two championship wins, Paffett moved onto Formula E for the 2018/19 championship, afte ...

and

Christijan Albers Christijan Albers () (born 16 April 1979) is a Dutch former professional racing driver. After success in the DTM he drove in Formula One from until the 2007 British Grand Prix, shortly after which he was dropped by the Spyker F1 team. In ...

. In the 2005 DTM season he finished second behind Paffett. Ekström has also been active in

rallying Rally is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (often called ''rally racing),'' navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed time or average speed. ...

and the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...

. He debuted in the WRC in 1999 and recorded his best result at the 2005

Swedish Rally The Rally Sweden ( sv, Svenska rallyt), formerly the International Swedish Rally, and later the Uddeholm Swedish Rally, is an automobile rally competition held in February in Värmland, Sweden and relocated to Umeå in 2022. First held in 1950, ...

, finishing tenth in a Škoda factory team Fabia WRC. At the

2005 Race of Champions The 2005 Race of Champions took place on December 3 again at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The individual event was won by Sébastien Loeb after Tom Kristensen crashed out of the final, and the Nations Cup event by Tom Kristensen and Matti ...

, Ekström won the Nations' Cup with Tom Kristensen. In 2006, he won the ''

Henri Toivonen Henri Pauli Toivonen (25 August 1956 – 2 May 1986) was a Finnish rally driver born in Jyväskylä, the home of Rally Finland. His father, Pauli, was the 1968 European Rally Champion for Porsche and his brother, Harri, became a profes ...

Memorial Trophy'' and earned the title ''Champion of Champions'' at the

2006 Race of Champions The 2006 Race of Champions took place on 16 December at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The Nations' Cup was competed first and the event was won by Finland, with Heikki Kovalainen winning over United States' Travis Pastrana on the final ro ...

, by winning over Sébastien Loeb in the individual event finals. After a poor 2006 season, Ekström won his second DTM title in

2007 File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple Inc., Apple's first iPhone (1st generation), iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakis ...

and went on to win the 2007 Race of Champions, beating

Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher (; ; born 3 January 1969) is a German former racing driver who competed in Formula One for Jordan, Benetton, Ferrari, and Mercedes. Schumacher has a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles (tied with Lewis ...

in the individual finals. In

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; Protests ...

, he won the Race of Champions once more beating the seven-time world champion in the final. DTM Audi A4 Ekstroem09 amk

Ekström became the first Scandinavian driver to take part in the

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

Sprint Cup Series in June 2010. He raced for

Team Red Bull Red Bull Racing Team, also known as Team Red Bull, was a NASCAR team owned by Red Bull founders Dietrich Mateschitz and Chaleo Yoovidhya. The team was based in Mooresville, North Carolina in the United States and was managed by Jay Frye. The te ...

at Infineon Raceway, substituting for Brian Vickers in the No. 83 Toyota Camry, as Vickers was inactive for the remainder of the 2010 season due to blood clots. Ekström was able to finish 21st and lead 7 laps mostly remaining in the top 5 or top 10 the whole day. However he did so ex-aequo with another Scandinavian driver as Jan Magnussen from Denmark also took part in the same race, eventually finishing ahead of Ekström. Ekström also ran the Air Guard 400 at Richmond International Raceway where he started 42nd and finished 31st. 2014 DTM HockenheimringII Mattias Ekstroem by 2eight 8SC4973

2014 DTM HockenheimringII Mattias Ekstroem by 2eight 8SC4973

Ekström followed in the footsteps of his father Bengt by branching out into rallycross in 2013, competing in the Swedish round of the

European Rallycross Championship European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

in Höljes, finishing second in a

Volkswagen Polo The Volkswagen Polo is a supermini car ( B-segment) produced by the German car manufacturer Volkswagen since 1975. It is sold in Europe and other markets worldwide in hatchback, saloon, and estate variants throughout its production run. Histor ...

. He subsequently announced that he was establishing his own EKS RX team to compete in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. The team made their debut at the Norwegian round of the 2014 World Rallycross Championship season in

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

, fielding a pair of

S1s for Ekström and 2013 Junior World Rally Champion Pontus Tidemand. Ekström is widely regarded as one of the most versatile drivers in the world. He also participated in the

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (formally known as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supercars Championship, the most rece ...

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...

alongside Andy Priaulx in a 'wildcard' entry. The entry qualified 19th and finished 10th, with former 1000 winner turned commentator Mark Skaife hailing his efforts, stating that he was "one of the best debutants I have seen", as well as being "the best international driver since Jacky Ickx". Ickx won the race on debut with Allan Moffat in

1977 Events January * January 8 – Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (now the Democrat ...

. In January 2018, Ekström announced that he would be retiring from DTM, to concentrate on running his rallycross team, now with added support from Audi Sport. However, at the end of the season Audi decided to withdrew its works programme, leaving Ekström's team in limbo, with some of the team's Audi S1 were sold to the privateers. Eventually the team stayed as one-car privateer after signing Krisztián Szabó from Hungary, with Ekström does a wildcard entry at the inaugural World Rallycross event in Spa Francochamps. Ekström returns to World Rallycross Championship in 2020 season, initially as a wildcard for the first two rounds in Sweden for the JC Race Teknik team, which coincidentally, running two EKS RX's Audi S1. He replaced Latvian Jānis Baumanis who was unable to do the full season with the team due to funding issues caused by

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

. Ekström ended up signed with the team for another two double-header rounds in Finland and Latvia, which he got two wins and five podiums out of six events so far, making him the championship contender along with fellow Swede

Johan Kristoffersson Johan David Kristoffersson (born 6 December 1988) is a Swedish racecar driver. He is a five time World Champion having won the FIA World Rallycross Championship in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 and 2022. In 2018 he won a record breaking 11 out of 12 ...

Racing record

Complete Swedish Touring Car Championship results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete Super Tourenwagen Cup results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap) ¹ Shanghai was a non-championship round.
^† Retired, but was classified as he completed 75% of the winner's race distance.
^‡ As Ekström was a guest driver, he was ineligible for championship points.

NASCAR

( key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. ''Italics'' – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Sprint Cup Series

Complete V8 Supercar results

( key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in ''italics'' indicate fastest lap)

Complete WRC results

( key)

Complete Global RallyCross Championship results

( key)

Supercar

Complete FIA European Rallycross Championship results

( key)

Supercar

Complete FIA World Rallycross Championship results

( key)

Supercar/RX1

Dakar Rally results

Bathurst 1000 results

Complete Extreme E results

( key)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ekstrom, Mattias Living people 1978 births People from Falun Swedish racing drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champions Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers Swedish Touring Car Championship drivers Blancpain Endurance Series drivers NASCAR drivers Supercars Championship drivers Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland European Rallycross Championship drivers World Rallycross Championship drivers Global RallyCross Championship drivers Dakar Rally drivers Extreme E drivers Sportspeople from Dalarna County Abt Sportsline drivers Audi Sport drivers W Racing Team drivers Nürburgring 24 Hours drivers Cupra Racing drivers