Gone was the Audi Sport support to the FIA World Rallycross Championship, but not Mattias Ekström and EKS Sport or their Audi S1 EKS RX, but while Ekström is now on the management side, Hungarian Krisztian Szabo will be the one behind the wheel of the German machine in 2019.
Ekström himself didn’t make clear that EKS would pull off altogether after the 2018 Cape Town RX with Audi, and what he would do next was still to be decided since then, and for the greater good, the choice was to stay in World RX for 2019 in the way that EKS started in rallycross, by being a private entity.
The 2018 spec S1 EKS RX to be used is the one that remained with EKS Sport, with two of their machines being acquired by JC Raceteknik, which will compete in the Euro RX and RallyX Nordic with Mats Öhman and former Olsbergs MSE driver Robin Larsson. At EKS, Hungarian driver Krisztian Szabo will do the driving, effectively graduating from the European championship into the World stage.
Szabo is what we can call another result of the grueling yet rewarding rallycross ladder, being essentially in the Super 1600 class, where he got two titles in 2016 and 2017. His opportunity in the supercars came with EKS last year in the Euro RX in the same S1 he will drive, scoring a second place at Lohéac as his best finish, which proves Ekström’s talent to scout promising drivers, as it was the case with former team mate Andreas Bakkerud, though the addition of the Norwegian to the program came unfortunately too late.
The 2019 World RX season will start on April 6th with the Abu Dhabi RX, with the grid still building up as more teams and drivers are confirmed.
PHOTO: EKS Sport
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