Bengt Mattias Ekström (born 14 July 1978) is a racing and rally driver from

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

. He competed in the

Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters The Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, commonly abbreviated as the DTM, is a sports car racing series sanctioned by ADAC. The series is based in Germany, with rounds elsewhere in Europe. The series currently races a modified version of Group GT3 gra ...

for

Audi Audi AG () is a German automotive manufacturer of luxury vehicles headquartered in Ingolstadt, Bavaria, Germany. A subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, Audi produces vehicles in nine production facilities worldwide. The origins of the compa ...

from 2001 until his retirement in 2018, and has been competing in the

FIA World Rallycross Championship The FIA World Rallycross Championship (official abbreviation is World RX) is a rallycross series organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA in conjunction with series promoter Rallycross Promoter GmbH (founded by Red Bull G ...

, also for Audi, since its inception in 2014. He is a FIA World Rallycross Champion, a two-time DTM champion and a four-time winner of the

Race of Champions The Race of Champions (ROC) is an international motorsport event held at the start or end of each year, featuring some of the world's best racing and rally drivers from Formula One, World Rally Championship, IndyCar, NASCAR, sports car racin ...

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 Swedish Touring Car Championship (STCC) was a touring car racing series based in Sweden, but also with rounds in Norway. They began operating in 1996, heavily influenced by the British Touring Car Championship and the success of BTCC racing on ...

in 1997, finishing runner-up with a

Volvo 850 The Volvo 850 is a compact executive car that was produced by the Swedish manufacturer Volvo Cars from 1991 until 1997. Designed by Jan Wilsgaard, the car was introduced in a Sedan (automobile), saloon body style; an Station wagon, estate style ...

. In 1998 he drove a

Ford Mondeo The Ford Mondeo is a Mid-size/large family car, large (D-segment) car manufactured and marketed by Ford Motor Company, Ford since 1993 across five generations for model years 1993-2022. As Ford self-declared world car, the Mondeo was intended to ...

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

Audi A4 The Audi A4 is a line of luxury compact executive cars produced from 1994 to 2025 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 platfor ...

quattro. He switched rides again in 2000, finishing third with a factory

Volvo S40 The Volvo S40 is a series of subcompact executive cars marketed and produced by the Swedish manufacturer Volvo Cars from 1995 to 2012, offered as a more mainstream alternative to the compact executive Volvo 850 and later the Volvo S60 to com ...

. In 2001, Ekström joined the Abt Junior team to compete at the

. Driving

Audi TT The Audi TT is a production front-engine, 2-door, 2+2 sports coupé and roadster, manufactured and marketed by Audi from 1998 to 2023 across three generations. For each of its three generations, the TT has been based on consecutive generations ...

, he finished 8th in his debut season, third in 2002, and fourth in 2003. In 2004, Ekström won the 2004 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters, defeating Mercedes rivals

Gary Paffett Gary James Paffett (born 24 March 1981 in Bromley) is a British former 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 champ ...

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 200 ...

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

rallying Rallying is a wide-ranging form of motorsport with various competitive motoring elements such as speed tests (sometimes called "rally racing" in United States), navigation tests, or the ability to reach waypoints or a destination at a prescribed ...

and the

World Rally Championship The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is an international rallying series owned and governed by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, FIA. Inaugurated in 1973, it is the oldest FIA world championship after Formula One. E ...

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

Swedish Rally The Rally Sweden (), formerly the KAK-Rally, 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, as a ...

, finishing tenth in a

Škoda Škoda means "pity" in the Czech and Slovak languages. It may also refer to: Czech brands and enterprises * Škoda Auto, automobile and previously bicycle manufacturer in Mladá Boleslav ** Škoda Motorsport, the division of Škoda Auto responsi ...

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, Seine-Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis. The individual event was won by Sébastien Loeb after Tom Kristensen (racing driver), Tom Kristensen crashed out of ...

, Ekström won the Nations' Cup with

Tom Kristensen Tom Kristensen (born 7 July 1967) is a Danish former racing driver. He holds the record for the most wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with nine, six of which were consecutive (from 2000 to 2005). In 1997, he won the race with the Joest Racing te ...

. 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 younger brother, Harri, became a prof ...

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

2006 Race of Champions 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics A six-sided polygon is a hexagon, one of the three regular polygons capable of tiling the plane. A hexagon a ...

, by winning over

Sébastien Loeb Sébastien Loeb (; born 26 February 1974) is a French professional rally, racing and rallycross driver. He is the most successful driver in the World Rally Championship (WRC), having won the world championship a record nine times in a row. He ho ...

in the individual event finals. Mattias Ekstrom NASCAR

After a poor 2006 season, Ekström won his second DTM title in

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

and went on to win the

2007 Race of Champions The 2007 Race of Champions took place on December 16 at the Wembley Stadium. Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel of the German team beat Finland to the Nation's Cup, however Mattias Ekström of Sweden and the Scandinavian team won the Dr ...

, beating

Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher (; born 3 January 1969) is a German former racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to and from to . Schumacher won a record-setting seven Formula One World Drivers' Championship titles, tied by Lewis Hamilton in ...

in the individual finals. In

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

, 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. It is considered to be one of the top ranked motorsports organizations in ...

Sprint Cup Series The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the NASCAR, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), the most prestigious stock car racing series in the United States. The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, ...

in June 2010. He raced for Team Red Bull at

Infineon Raceway Sonoma Raceway (originally known as Sears Point Raceway, Golden State International Raceway and Infineon Technologies, Infineon Raceway) is a road course and dragstrip located at Sears Point in the southern Sonoma Mountains of Sonoma County, Cal ...

, substituting for

Brian Vickers Brian Lee Vickers (born October 24, 1983) is an American former professional stock car and sports car racing driver. He last drove the No. 14 Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing as an interim driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the i ...

in the No. 83

Toyota Camry The Toyota Camry (; Japanese: トヨタ・カムリ ''Toyota Kamuri'') is an automobile sold internationally by the Japanese auto manufacturer Toyota since 1982, spanning multiple generations. Originally compact in size (narrow-body), the Cam ...

, 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 Jan Ellegaard Magnussen (born 4 July 1973) is a Danish professional racing driver and was a factory driver for General Motors until the end of the 2020 season. He has competed in Champ Car, Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART), NASCAR, the FIA ...

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 Richmond Raceway (RR) is a , ''D''-shaped, asphalt race track located just outside Richmond, Virginia in unincorporated Henrico County. It currently hosts one NASCAR Cup Series race weekend and the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It formerly h ...

where he started 42nd and finished 31st. 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 The European Rallycross Championship (former abbreviation ERC, now Euro RX or ERX) is a rallycross competition held in Europe, organised under the auspices of the FIA. History The predecessor championship began in 1973 as the Embassy/ERA Europ ...

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. As of 2 ...

. He subsequently announced that he was establishing his own EKS RX team to compete in the

. 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 or state in the afterlife in which souls are subjected to punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history sometimes depict hells as eternal destinations, such as Christianity and I ...

, fielding a pair of

S1s for Ekström and 2013 Junior World Rally Champion

Pontus Tidemand Pontus Johan Tidemand (born 10 December 1990) is a Swedish rally and rallycross driver. He is the 2017 WRC-2 champion and a previous M-Sport and Škoda Motorsport driver. Pontus is the son of Swedish rally driver Tomas Tidemand and ex-rally co ...

. Ekström is widely regarded as one of the most versatile drivers in the world. He also participated in the

Bathurst 1000 The Bathurst 1000 (known for sponsorship reasons as the Repco Bathurst 1000) is a Touring car racing, touring car race held annually on the Mount Panorama Circuit in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently run as part of the Supe ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

alongside

Andy Priaulx Andrew Graham Priaulx, Order of the British Empire, MBE ( born 7 August 1974) is a British people, British racing driver from Guernsey. In 2019 he raced for Chip Ganassi Racing, Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK in the FIA World Endurance Championship, ...

in a 'wildcard' entry. The entry qualified 19th and finished 10th, with former 1000 winner turned commentator

Mark Skaife Mark Stephen Skaife (born 3 April 1967) is an Australian former racing driver. Skaife is a five-time champion of the Supercars Championship, V8 Supercar Championship Series, including its predecessor, the Australian Touring Car Championship, a ...

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 Jacques Bernard Edmon Martin Henri "Jacky" Ickx (; born 1 January 1945) is a Belgian former racing driver, who competed in Formula One from to . Ickx twice finished runner-up in the Formula One World Drivers' Championship in and , and won eig ...

". Ickx won the race on debut with

Allan Moffat Allan George Moffat, Order of the British Empire, OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-born Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins ...

1977 Events January * January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, 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 (no ...

. 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 withdraw 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 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

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 and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. 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 seven time World Rallycross Champion having won the FIA World Rallycross Championship in 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and in 2024. In 2018 he won a re ...

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) ^* Season still in progress.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ekstrom, Mattias Living people 1978 births Sportspeople from Falun Swedish racing drivers 24 Hours of Spa drivers Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champions Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters drivers Swedish Touring Car Championship drivers GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup drivers NASCAR drivers Supercars Championship drivers Swedish expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland FIA European Rallycross Championship drivers World Rallycross Championship drivers Global RallyCross Championship drivers Dakar Rally drivers Extreme E drivers Abt Sportsline drivers Audi Sport drivers W Racing Team drivers Nürburgring 24 Hours drivers Cupra Racing drivers Zengő Motorsport drivers Škoda Motorsport drivers Cyan Racing drivers McLaren Racing drivers M-Sport drivers