Mattias
Ekström
Sweden
·
Touring Car
Date of birth | 14 July 1978 |
|---|---|
Place of birth | Falun |
Age | 47 |
Nationality | Sweden |
Career start | 1999 |
Disciplines | Rally Raid Car |
Mattias Ekström is best known as a champion of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters (DTM), having won the championship for Audi in 2004 and 2007.
During his career he has also won the Swedish Touring Car Championship and has become a regular competitor at the Race of Champions, winning it three times in Paris in 2006, London in 2007 and Beijing in 2009.
A driver with many strings to his bow, Ekström has also been active in rallying and the World Rally Championship. He debuted in the WRC in 1999 and recorded his best result at the 2005 Swedish Rally, where he finished tenth in a Škoda factory team Fabia WRC.
2007 saw Ekström win his second DTM championship; a year in which he also won the Race of Champions, beating Michael Schumacher in the individual finals. In 2009, he won the Race of Champions again by beating the seven-time world champion in the very last race.
The following year the multi-talented Swede also became the first Scandinavian driver to take part in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series when he raced for Team Red Bull at Infineon Raceway as a substitute for Brian Vickers.
2014 was another good year, positioning second in the overall DTM championship rankings, taking two wins in the final two rounds of the season.
The 2015 season saw Ekström finish tied fifth in the FIA World Rallycross Championship in his first points-scoring season. He came back in 2016 and won the title, winning four races and finishing 32 points clear at the top of the driver's standings.
Ekström finished in second-place overall in the DTM standings in 2017 and 2018 before returning World Rallycross Championship in 2020 season, initially as a wildcard for the first two rounds in Sweden for the JC Race Teknik team.
Ekström’s career reads like an encyclopaedia of motorsport and rest assured, he's not done yet. Right now he can be found showing off his multitude of talents in everything from the World Rallycross Championship and the World Rally Championship to the 2021 edition of the Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia.
Ekström drove the brand-new Audi RS Q e-tron at the 2022 Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia, where he put in a solid performance to win his first ever stage of the iconic event and went on to finish ninth overall. He returned in 2023, but was forced to withdraw after Stage 10 due to technical issues, before winning a stage again in the 2024 edition.
A move to the all-new Ford M-Sport Team fielded by the American car giant for the 2025 edition of Dakar brought the podium finish the Swede has been gunning for in recent years, scoring a fantastic third place in the rookie Raptor T1+ and adding another feather to his already-packed cap.