Mattias Ekström confirmed his commitment to the FIA World Rallycross Championship this Monday.
At the same time, Audi Sport stated that they were going to support the outfit once again in 2018.
The rest of the plans for the Swedish Rallycross team was announced today.
From now the team will be known as EKS Audi Sport, and Ekström will have Andreas Bakkerud as teammate.
Bakkerud is one of the very few drivers who has participated at all 49 World RX rounds, since the series started back in 2014. He has been on the podium 18 times, with 6 of those being on the top step. He finished third in the Championship in 2016 as his personal best result. By doing that, he beat great names like Petter Solberg and Sebastien Loeb.
Andreas Bakkerud was without a team for the 2018 season, since Hoonigan Racing Division and Ford pulled out of the World RX after the final race in 2017.
Photo: Audi Sport/Ferdi Kräling Motorsport-Bild GmbH
Ekström and Bakkerud can very well turn out to be a dominant force in the World RX, just like we saw in 2017 with Johan Kristoffersson and Petter Solberg, which curiously is also a Swedish-Norwegian duo.
The team has started building two brand new Audi S1 EKS RX cars for the coming season, where they really have to up their game, if the want to win both titles, like they did in 2016.
Audi Sport has added interest in the FIA World Rallycross Championship, since the series plan to run an electric division in the near future.
The 2018 season starts on 14-15 April at Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain.
