Ahlin’s career break
The rallying talent who slipped though the net
There are plenty of famous rallying dynasties across the world: think the Mcraes, the Rovanperas and the Solbergs. But a glance at Fredrik Ahlin’s family tree reveals more than enough pedigree to rival the aforementioned three.
Both of Ahlin’s grandfathers competed and competed at an extremely high level. Freddy Kottulinksy for example won the second ever Dakar Rally in 1980 and was later involved with Audi as the Quattro was unleashed. Fredrik’s parents Susanne Kottulinsky and Jerry Ahlin were both professional rally drivers while his sister Mikeala Ahlin-kottulinksy currently races in
Swedish TCR for PWR Racing.
“Definitely I had something in the genes and the DNA to get me involved in motorsport,” Ahlin says. “I started with karting like I think most kids nowadays and then at 16 years old I started to go down the rally route because it was always my main thing. I thought it was the coolest way and then things just developed into what it became in the end.”
What it became in the end was a hugely successful international career that, given a little more luck and funding, could’ve propelled Ahlin into the World Rally Championship elite. Outside of his native Sweden, Ahlin first came to prominence very early in his career in 2011. After winning rallies outright in a Group N Subaru, Ahlin was awarded a Pirelli Star Driver scholarship to compete in the WRC Academy in a Ford Fiesta R2.
“I was probably [not mature enough back then],” he admits. “I came from Sweden being the super talent so I think my expectations and also expectations of everyone else around me were a little too high to cope with. To be honest I just drove over the limit at moments all of the time. I didn’t really understand that to be second on a stage sometimes is enough to win a rally. I wanted to win every stage, in every country everywhere which maybe
[wasn’t smart].”
Ahlin’s WRC Academy journey continued into 2012 where again he showed searing pace to lead rallies but couldn’t convert the speed into results. A terrifying accident in Spain which put Ahlin into a short coma and left him with four days of memory loss was a nasty end to the season and led to the Swede’s motivation plummeting to nil.
“In 2013, I was more or like ‘f*ck it I’m not interested in this anymore’but then I started to do some local rallies with the R2 car back home and found joy in driving again,” he says. “I think it’s very easy when you’re young and ambitious to forget why you actually started with the sport from the beginning. So I found some joy again and did a lot of really good result during that year. I won in Sweden against Pontus Tidemand who was that year’s JWRC champion, I won in Norway and I won when I went to Finland so overall it was a very successful year.”
Despite his absence from the WRC service park, Ahlin began to make important connections too; namely Dick Cormack, the managing director of DMACK, and Martin Wilkinson who ran the CA1 Sport team. After finishing second on Rally Uppsala in Sweden behind the wheel of a DMACK-SHOD
Skoda Fabia S2000, Ahlin received a call from Cormack asking if he’d like to contest a WRC2 programme in 2014 alongside Jari Ketomaa and Ott Tanak.
“I jumped on that train, did my WRC 2 debut in Sweden in 2014 with the Fiesta R5 for CA1 Sport and that’s how I met Martin Wilkinson for the first time,” Ahlin adds. “We finished third on debut and things just developed from there.”
Ahlin’s relationship with CA1 is what helped raise his profile in the UK, as after another strong season in the R5 in 2015, the Swede headed for the British Rally Championship.
“Martin became more of a mentor than a team manager to be fair,” Ahlin says. “He suggested to skip WRC 2 as we didn’t have the budget to compete with those guys on the correct level, we could only do three or four rallies. So we put that money into doing Rally Sweden and the British Championship, finishing the year off with Wales Rally GB.”
Ahlin immediately made his mark on the season-opening Mid Wales Stages, leading the event with two stages to go but ultimately finishing second behind eventual champion Elfyn Evans. This performance surprised a few, but it shouldn’t have as Ahlin was pushing Evans all the way on Rally Sweden a matter of weeks earlier before a technical failure led to his demise.
“I knew the level would be really, really high,” Ahlin recalls, “but I knew that I had a chance to fight with them and I was pretty sure that I had the speed anyway to be second behind Elfyn on all gravel events.”
But he’d go one better than that on round three – the Pirelli Rally – with a near 30-second victory in Kielder that elevated him to the head of the championship on an event that was dominated by bogey time and chicane controversy. That was as good as it got however as Ahlin failed to register a single point on the remaining four rounds to slip to fourth come the season’s end.
A Skoda switch in 2017 brought immediate results, with comfortable victories on the Border Counties Rally and again on the Pirelli establishing him as title favourite. Then came the Scottish Rally and a massive scrap with team-mate David Bogie in Bogie’s backyard. Heading into the final 8.1-mile Ae test, Ahlin trailed Bogie by 0.1s but wouldn’t finish as a stone pierced a radiator pipe and he was forced to park his Fabia R5.
The 2017 BRC season is famous for being decided by one point and 0.1 seconds on the Isle of Man in favour of Keith Cronin as Ahlin could only manage third on both points-scoring legs behind Cronin and Matt Edwards. But ask Ahlin, and it’s that retirement four months earlier that cost him his championship as he lost at least 18 points for second place.
“Without that hole I would’ve been champion before even going to Isle of Man,” Ahlin says. “[But] I’m going to be perfectly honest, it would be have been cool to win it but I don’t think it makes too much difference to my career. I lost the championship on a technical mishap but I’m happy with the year I did. I was the fastest guy on the gravel, I was getting better on the Tarmac, so couldn’t ask for more even though I don’t have the title.”
In 2018, Ahlin graduated to an ERC Junior U28 programme, capping off the year with a strong third overall in Latvia. He took a 10-month break before returning in late 2019 to contest three
Swedish championship rallies; winning on what could very well be his last start in Karlshamn last September. The budget just hasn’t been there for Ahlin to be rallying week in week out.
“I was going to announce this in February but I didn’t want to announce that I was stopping rallying when we are in this global situation, it’s irrelevant,” Ahlin reveals.
“I’m not saying that I’ve stopped forever. If there’s an opportunity opening where I can do professional rallying again I would definitely do it but I will not drive around in the Swedish Championship just for fun. I’m not going to pull my hair out to try and get the budget again because it’s been 10 very hard years where we always had the stress to find the money. I’ve done it, I’ve tried it, I had loads of fun but everything has its time.
“My goal was to be a factory driver fighting for wins in the
WRC,” he adds. “But I think one of the best lessons I’ve learned is you should never compare yourself to anyone else; instead just do your own thing. I never had a big budget to start a season and do 14 events or whatever but if you look at the other 99% of people in the world trying to be rally drivers, I probably had it better than them.
“Motorsport is always going to be like this. Like I’ve always said there’s a reason I’m not a WRC driver because if I would have been as good as Ogier, I would have been there. Because if you look at a guy like Ogier, they will get there no matter what, if they have the back up or not.”