Mattias Ekström was ‘very proud’ to be crowned the inaugural PURE ETCR champion at Circuit Pau-Arnos in France, despite a scare at the start of the CUPRA driver’s SuperFinal.
Ekström went into his Sunday SuperFinal knowing that all he had to do was to finish the race no more than one lap down, after having earlier won all of his battles on Friday and Saturday before claiming pole position in his Pool B time trial.
However, at the start of the seven-lap, six-car sprint, Ekström and fellow front-row starter Philipp Eng made contact at the first chicane, cutting the CUPRA driver’s tyre and sending him spinning across the grass and back onto the track.
The drama put Ekström in fifth out of six cars and forced him to limp back to the pits for a tyre change along with Eng.
Even though Eng retired from the race, Ekström’s CUPRA mechanics still faced a race against time to get him out, as if he had dropped more than a lap down he would not have been able to cover sufficient distance to be classified and pick up the points needed to clinch the title.
In the end, Ekström made it back onto track in time, finishing the SuperFinal in fifth and just one lap down to claim the inaugural PURE ETCR title, despite the best efforts of his main rival Jean-Karl Vernay in winning the race.
Ekström admitted that he was surprised by the actions of Romeo Ferraris’ Eng at the start of the race.
“From what I saw on the replay, Philipp gave up and lifted, wanted probably to go in behind, but ran out of talent and instead of going behind he ran into my left rear and cut the tyre,” said Ekström. “Once the tyre had no air, the car just spun.
“I knew before the race I had to finish in P5 to be champion so that was the minimum I had to achieve. But I don’t see any reason to go into a race and back off and finish P5, so I was going to race as good as I can. I didn’t expect Philipp to do this but he probably has a reason.
“I got very good information from the team – they told me what pace I had to carry and so on, so I was quite excited because the car was not in good condition – the steering wheel wasn’t straight, there was lots of vibrations and I didn’t know, but the front right tyre was almost off the rim!
“Just trying to nurse the car home was the goal, as he [Eng] couldn’t continue.
“For me it was a very action-packed last race. I have been trying risk management all season long – and I didn’t see this one coming, but sometimes, even at my age, you get surprised and realise that you can’t be cautious enough.”
Ekström added that he was very proud to have clinched the world’s first electric touring car championship title at the first attempt, having first worked with CUPRA two years’ ago.
“It means a lot. Especially for CUPRA, because when I came to CUPRA back in 2019, the aim was to build a car and team together with them and go and be champions in PURE ETCR.
“That was the mission, and now a couple of years later we managed it at the first try, and that’s something I’m very proud of.
“It has been a pleasure to be part of the team with Mikel [Azcona], Jordi [Gené] and Dániel [Nagy], and also to compete with the rest of the top drivers in this championship. It is a title to remember.”