SEVENTEEN YEARS, TWO TITLES
It’s fair to say that Mattias Ekstrom should have won more than two titles during his DTM career. While his recent 2015 miss was particularly disappointing, and the following year he switched his focus to gaining the World Rallycross Championship title by missing the final round, there were several other notable misses.
Ekstrom does not agree that he peaked in his title-winning years of 2004 and ’07, and points to ’11 as his best campaign. That was the year when his Audi stablemate Martin Tomczyk made the most of a weight advantage in the older-spec A4, combined with a run of four races without a podium for Ekstrom early on.
The following year he struggled to the point that Autosport described him as a man who “looked finished at times”. Ekstrom could then have left for either BMW or Mercedes, but he saw the bigger picture and remained with Audi.
By the time he bowed out at the end of 2017, at the age of 39, he’d been a mainstay of the DTM for 17 seasons. He burst onto the scene with the privateer Abt Audi team in 2001 and successfully played rear-gunner for champion Laurent Aiello in ’02. And by ’04 – the return of Audi as a factory team – the tide was turning in favour of the next generation.
Ekstrom’s first title year came after a fight with fellow young gun Gary Paffett, one that significantly swung Ekstrom’s way when the British Mercedes star was excluded because of insufficient fuel for a sample after a stunning race at the Lausitzring.
“I think that was the hype year when I felt DTM was really cool,” he says. “That was when the cars had less downforce and the tyres were way different. It was unique as a formula. I think it was a real honour to be a part of the championship. 2001, ’02 and ’03, it took a while [to get up to speed].”
In 2005 Paffett took his revenge with the title and Ekstrom struggled with the updated Audi. Two years later Ekstrom won the most open title race in modern times. “With the amount of races we have,” he says, “you can’t afford to have a bad weekend.”