“You have to race the Dakar at least once!”
Crew facts
- 8 times FIA World Rallycross Champion, Johan Kristoffersson is the latest in a long line of very fast drivers looking to make the switch to rally raid. The most capped driver in his discipline, his last championship dates from this year - so we can conclude he is very much still at the top of his game.
- He was also the first person to win the Extreme E series with Molly Taylor in 2021, a feat that he repeated in 2023.
- He is quick on tarmac too, having won the Swedish Touring Car Championship in 2012 and 2018, as well as having taken 2 class wins at the Nurburgring 24h.
Ambition
“Like everybody involved in motorsport I’ve always followed the Dakar and I have quite a few friends; Carlos Sainz, Sebastien Loeb, Mattias Ekstrom… who’ve moved out of their original speciality and who’ve encouraged me to have a go. Then this opportunity to drive a factory Polaris in Loeb’s team came up and so of course I said yes. As a professional racing driver you have to race the Dakar at least once! As far as my ambitions for the Dakar are concerned I think we’ll prioritise a finish over a result. Obviously we’ll try and do our best, I don’t want to be at the very bottom of the rankings but you need to gain experience for this kind of event. Especially as I haven’t actually driven the car yet, which is basically the one Heger used to win the Dakar last year. And then if it goes well why not continue. Rally raid is attracting a lot of interest at the moment both from media and the manufacturers and it looks like a good sport to be involved In.”
