“This is pretty much Extreme E…never give up. Anything can happen.”
The words of Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky have never been more apt.
Going into Sunday’s Extreme E season finale in Chile, Ahlin-Kottulinsky and her Rosberg X Racing teammate Johan Kristoffersson only needed to finish ahead of Acciona Sainz’s Mattias Ekstrom and Laia Sanz to ensure they were champions.
As is often the case with the all-electric off-road series, things were far from straightforward, with Kristoffersson surviving a near-roll on the opening lap, and Ahlin-Kottulinsky wrestling home the car with three working wheels as Acciona Sainz’s hopes crumbled.
It was something of a reversal compared to last year, where the team were again championship forerunners going into the final round, but for a roll to set off a run of bad luck that saw the team overhauled.
“I’ve been in enough championships to know that anything can happen, especially in Extreme E,” Kristofferson – who recently added a sixth FIA World Rallycross title to his packed resume – told RACER. “We saw what happened last year. We just lost at the finish line there, really. This year, we managed to take the win at the finish line. It’s a bit like revenge from last year.”
After Kristoffersson’s lap one incident, the team could do nothing but wait and see how the race would unfold in front of them. The tip onto two wheels after he dug into a rut at the second corner left the team with a puncture, sliding a lap down. When Ahlin-Kottulinsky took over the car halfway through the race, the damage had developed into a broken track rod.
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“I was trying just to be open minded for everything and stay calm because I do feel last year…that roll that cost us the championship, so my goal this weekend was just to keep calm, [make] no big mistakes,” she said of the job she had to do wrestling the wounded car home. “Of course you get a bit down, but then I was thinking, ‘Nope, don’t give up,’ and the team was thinking the same
“So then I just went out there and understood if we could pass [Sanz] we would be champions.”
The results will show RXR finished more than 4m behind eventual race winners Veloce Racing, but with the Acciona Sainz entry on its roof, speed didn’t matter — they just needed to get past.
“We were more or less in the same position as last year, and of course, you know, the experience from that is helpful,” said Kristoffersson, who is now Extreme E’s sole two-time champion driver. “Every time you managed to win a championship, your shoulders and your stress levels will be lower than next time you face the same situation.”
For Ahlin-Kottulinsky, the rebound from last year grants her a maiden Extreme E crown.
“It was an honor to be asked to join the team last year after they won the championship the first year,” she said. “Then to not be able to bring home the championship last year was a tough one to swallow. It took me a while to get back and [I was] really eager to take it this year. Now in the end, we did that.
“It feels great that Rosberg has their faith in me to keep me even for the second year, even though we didn’t win last year. Now we did, so it feels really good to be able to give that to the team.”
Not only is it adding to the legacy of Extreme E’s most successful team, but it comes at a time where the series has never been as competitive, or as busy, with the calendar expanding from five races to 10 this year. RXR made it to every final this season, but didn’t lead the standings until the penultimate round.
“I think that this year is definitely the strongest year of competition throughout the whole field,” Kristoffersson pointed out. “In pace, looking at the field, it’s so tight.”