Mattias Ekström and Emil Bergkvist

Mattias Ekström is a racing driver for all occasions. The Swede is a former World Rallycross champion, two-time DTM champion and the winner of five Race of Champions titles. He is now the “junior” in Audi Sport’s Dakar driver trio.

For the 45-year-old Swede, new motorsport opportunities continue to thrill him. “I still love finding out how good I can really become as a driver,” says Ekström. His tireless spirit of discovery took Mattias Ekström from Sweden’s province of Falun to the very top of the international motorsport stage. For 17 years, Ekström was a regular DTM title contender. This was always for Audi as an Audi factory driver for 14 years. He won two DTM titles with the brand with the four rings. With his own team and the Audi S1 EKS RX quattro, the Swede also became the World Rallycross champion. After sporadic rally events during his long career, he competed in all of the rounds of the new Extreme E off-road racing series for CUPRA in 2021.

The Swede made his Dakar Rally debut in a buggy together with Emil Bergqvist in 2021. This was followed by the duo competing in the car category for the first time with the Audi RS Q e-tron¹ in 2022. By winning a stage and finishing ninth overall as the best-placed Audi driver, Ekström and co-driver Emil Bergkvist immediately made their mark. With 14th place, he was also the best Audi driver at the 2023 Dakar Rally.

His most important insight after the almost 8,000-kilometer marathon through the deserts of Saudi Arabia: “The key factor at the Dakar Rally is that as a driver you must manage the relationship between performance and risk as well as possible.”

Emil Bergkvist was a rally driver himself for ten years. The Swede even became the Junior World Rally champion. In 2021, he switched to the co-driver’s seat and became the co-driver of Mattias Ekström, his idol when he was young.

Switching roles from driver to co-driver was not an easy decision for Emil Bergkvist: “I went back and forth for a long time.” When no new rally driving opportunity could be found for him, he signed on with EKS in the summer of 2020. This is the company with which Mattias Ekström conducts his off-road motorsport activities, among other things.

“At first, I operated machines and drove trucks at EKS, because I also have a driver’s license for that. I also know a lot about technology and helped out in the workshop,” says Bergkvist, explaining how his relationship with Ekström started. “I worked my way up the ladder to get even better jobs, step by step.”

Racing drivers Emil Bergkvist and Mattias Ekström also frequently had more conversations. “First once a week, then twice, then three times. We realized that we had a very good connection,” said Bergkvist. Finally, Ekström asked him: “Why don’t you give up your driving career and become my co-driver?”

One year after Ekström and Bergkvist made their Dakar Rally debut with a buggy prototype, the duo won a stage of the 2022 Dakar Rally in the Audi RS Q e-tron¹. As the youngest of Audi Sport’s three Dakar crews, Emil Bergkvist sees this advantage for himself: “If you’re young and motivated, you have a good chance of a good result at the Dakar Rally. Of course, you have to have prepared yourself and everything properly.”