Rickard Rydell’s competitors and colleagues reflect on the Swede’s career

Following the announcement from 1998 BTCC champion and 2011 STCC champion Rickard Rydell’s retirement announcement two weeks ago, TouringCarTimes has spoken to a few of Rydell’s colleagues and opponents from his successful tin-top career, which began in the BTCC in 1994 racing the famous Volvo 850 estate, and ended at Paul Ricard last year, with his final outing taking place in the WTCC with Honda Team Sweden.

Rydell announced his retirement from motorsport following a curtailed campaign in 2015. The Swede’s touring car career started with a successful seven year spell in the British Touring Car Championship during its golden era, winning the 1998 drivers’ title with Volvo as well as that year’s Bathurst 1000 in Australia, before following his final BTCC team, Prodrive, to sportscar racing in 2001.

He returned to touring cars in 2002, driving for Volvo for two years in the ETCC, before moving across to SEAT in 2004, staying with the Spanish marque as the ETCC transitioned into the WTCC in 2005.

Rydell would miss most of the 2007 season, making a memorable one-off appearance for Chevrolet at Anderstorp, taking a controversial victory at his home race, before returning to SEAT for the 2008 and 2009 seasons, before taking a year out of racing in 2010 when SEAT downsized their programme.

The Swede returned home to race in the STCC for the first time in 2011 while the Swedish championship was enjoying international recognition. In his first year with Chevrolet Team Sweden, Rydell won the drivers’ title against tough competition from Kristoffersson Motorsport’s Volkswagen Sciroccos, but was unable to defend his title in 2012.

With the Swedish championship having weakened due to a damaging divide over technical regulations, Rydell left the championship at the end of the year, making a one-off appearance in Shanghai for Nika Racing before making three appearances in 2015 with the team, now with Honda’s new car.

But budget issues for the team and also with Rickard having been struck down with Thyroidosis ahead of the second race weekend in Morocco disrupted what would be his final season. Rydell returned to race in Russia and France, before announcing his retirement in February 2016.

John Cleland

“He was a competitor and a friend,” said two-time British Touring Car champion John Cleland to TouringCarTimes. “I sent him a commiserations message and told him he should have done it years ago anyway because he was too old,” he joked. “He was good fun, a hard competitor and fun to race with, he wasn’t shy to give a good tap here or there. There again we gave as good as we got.

“Socially we played a lot of golf together, we socialised, one of his nephews and me and my sons went to Alton Towers one Donington weekend and spent the day there with the kids. We were good mates.

“Ironically enough he and I could’ve been team-mates because I was given the chance to drive the estate car instead of Jan Lammers (in 1994). I had talks with (Tom) Walkinshaw’s people about driving with Rick in the Volvo.

Cleland, who has been campaigning his old Triple Eight Race Engineering-built Vauxhall Vectra in the Historic Super Touring Car Challenge for the past two seasons, added:

“All joking about, I sent him a message saying ‘now you’re going to have time to come and play with these historic touring cars, so get yourself organised!'”

Fredrik Ekblom

2011 saw Rydell fighting for the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship title, representing Chevrolet against Volkswagen driver Fredrik Ekblom.

“Rickard is a very fast and professional driver. We had a tough fight in 2011 for the STCC title. Although the fight was not that much bumper to bumper, but rather in the points as we had cars that were vastly different and strong on different circuits,” said Ekblom.

Rydell came out on top in the fight with Ekblom, clinching the 2011 STCC title for Chevrolet Team Sweden. But 2011 was not the first time the two met, with them both racing in the 2002 European Touring Car Championship, Rydell for Volvo and Ekblom for BMW, as well as crossing paths in the infamous WTCC race at Anderstorp.

“I would describe him as a sly and calculating mother-in-law’s dream on the racing circuits. You can expect anything when he is behind on you the circuit. But he has been a tone-setting driver in Swedish racing for a long time and he is doing a great job helping new talents with his young driver programme,” said Ekblom.

Alain Menu

Alain Menu, who was Rickard Rydell’s championship rival while driving for Renault in 1997-1998, and again in 2000 when the pair both teamed up at Ford in the BTCC, also has fond memories, which continued on as the two drivers competed in the World Touring Car Championship from 2005.

“Ricky boy and I go back a long way, all the way to our F3 days in England,” said Menu to TouringCarTimes. “We got to know each other better in the BTCC though when Rickard joined the party in a Volvo estate in 1994.

“He was quiet and I used to keep myself to myself so it was in 2000 when we were team-mates at Ford Prodrive and the following few years in the Prodrive Ferrari that we got to really know each other.

“There was mutual respect before then on a professional level, but as team-mates we got to spend more time together outside of a racing environment, including a trip to Argentina with our respective families in 2004 for the 200km of Buenos Aires race where my little one, Célestine, four at the time, spent most of the flight asleep on Rickard’s lap!

“Both Anthony ‘Mad Max’ Reid and I were a little concerned when we were told Rickard was going to join us in 2000. Not only did we know him as being extremely quick, we were worried about Prodrive running three cars (which was still fairly uncommon in those days) and how it would all pan out. As it turned out, despite all three of us fighting for the championship till the last weekend, we never had any real problems or issues. Respect (and good management from Prodrive) carried us through that year.

“Rickard could be a ruthless individual though as he proved on his one off appearance in the Chevrolet WTCC team in 2007 in Sweden. He overtook both myself and Nicola Larini on the last lap despite team orders tell us all to stay put. A Swede in Sweden trying to rekindle his career I suppose.

“All in all though, he’s a great racing driver and a great man, Ricky boy!”

Rickard Rydell’s touring car career highlights

Year – Series – Event
1994 – BTCC – TWR Volvo 850 Estate – Debut touring car season, 14th overall
1995 – BTCC – TWR Volvo 850 Saloon – Four wins on the way to third in the standings
1996 – BTCC – TWR Volvo 850 Saloon – Another four wins, and third again in the championship
1997 – BTCC – TWR Volvo S40 – One win and five podiums, fourth in the championship in Renault dominated year
1998 – BTCC – TWR Volvo S40 – Five wins and another 11 podiums on the way to the overall drivers’ championship title
1999 – BTCC – TWR Volvo S40 – Four wins and third in the championship as Nissan became the leading car
2000 – BTCC – Prodrive Ford Mondeo – Three wins and third in the championship
2002 – ETCC – Prodrive Volvo S60 – Eight podiums and fifth in the first year of the championship
2003 – ETCC – ART Volvo S60 – Two podiums with the privateer squad
2004 – ETCC – SEAT Toledo – Achieved the first win for SEAT in Germany
2005 – WTCC – SEAT Toledo/León – One win and four podiums, sixth in the standings
2006 – WTCC – SEAT León – Five podiums and seventh in the standings
2007 – WTCC – Chevrolet Lacetti/SEAT León – One win at Anderstorp with Chevrolet, just two races all year
2008 – WTCC – SEAT León TDI – Two wins and five podiums, fifth in the championship
2009 – WTCC – SEAT León TDI – One win and five podiums, seventh in the championship
2011 – STCC – Nika Chevrolet Cruze – Three wins and three podiums, champion
2012 – STCC – Nika Chevrolet Cruze – Three wins and nine podiums, championship runner-up
2013 – WTCC – Nika Chevrolet Cruze – One outing in China
2015 – WTCC – Nika Honda Civic – Three outings and three points finishes