26 Facts About Rickard Rydell

Rickard Rydell was born on 22 September 1967 and is a retired Swedish racing driver.

Rickard Rydell won pole position in the 1991 Macau Grand Prix, and won the 1992 race.

Rickard Rydell competed in Japanese F3 in 1992 and 1993, British F3 in 1989 and 1991, and the Swedish F3 series in 1987 and 1988.

The TWR team switched to a saloon in 1995 and Rickard Rydell took pole for 13 of the 24 races, but due to several slow starts he won only 4 times and he finished on podium 7 times.

Rickard Rydell won the 1998 Super Touring Bathurst 1000, sharing a Volvo S40 with Jim Richards.

Rickard Rydell spent 2001 largely waiting for his ETCC Volvo S60 to be built, but he raced a Ferrari 550 Maranello in the FIA GT Championship for the Prodrive team.

Rickard Rydell moved to SEAT's SEAT Sport team in 2004 for the ETCC driving Seat Toledo Cupra ending 10th with 1 victory and 1 podium.

SEAT and Rickard Rydell continued in the World Touring Car Championship when it replaced the ETCC for 2005.

Rickard Rydell finished sixth in the championship, winning race two at Silverstone and 4 podium.

Rickard Rydell continued with SEAT for 2006, finishing seventh, with just 4 podium.

Rickard Rydell lost his SEAT drive for 2007, and instead drove an Aston Martin DBR9 with the Prodrive team in the GT Championship having previously worked with the team when using Ferrari's in 2004.

Rickard Rydell raced in the 2007 24 Hours of Le Mans with David Brabham and Darren Turner and they won in the GT1 class.

Rickard Rydell won the second race of the day, ahead of teammates Nicola Larini and Alain Menu ignoring the team order not to attack their teammate, in particular Larini who was fighting for the title championship and losing the opportunity to continue with RML until the end of the season.

The weekend though did not set off as planned, due to Rickard Rydell starting 14th on the race 1 grid and Yvan Muller started 2nd behind the eventual winner of the first race Alain Menu in the RML run Chevrolet.

Rickard Rydell finished 11th in the first race with Yvan Muller leading 8 of the 9 laps of the race, but due to a fuel pressure problem Muller's race weekend ended on the 8th lap even before he was able to get to the pits.

Rickard Rydell was re-signed by SEAT as one of their drivers in their five strong driver line up for an assault on the 2008 WTCC season.

Rickard Rydell finished fifth in the final standings, winning once at Estoril and once at Okayama.

Rickard Rydell raced for SEAT yet again in 2009, winning at Puebla and finishing seventh overall in the final standings.

Rickard Rydell was signed to Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden team with the Cruze joining as team with his teammate Viktor Hallrup a developmental driver for the team in his second season with the team, with first season being with the Lacetti.

Rickard Rydell came in as a booster driver for Chevrolet Sweden to gain results for the team as their developmental driver was still not up to speed with the top runners.

Rickard Rydell won the title* at the last race of the season at Mantorp by just 2 points to Frederik Ekblom.

Rickard Rydell joined NIKA Racing for the 2013 FIA WTCC Race of China to drive their Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T.

Rickard Rydell raced in the 2001 FIA GT Championship for Prodrive, after the team had built a Ferrari 550-GTS Maranello.

Consequently, there were numerous drivers of the vehicle that season, Rickard Rydell being one of them.

Rickard Rydell drove five races that year, finishing 3rd at the Nurburgring and two overall victories at the A1 Ring and Jarama respectively.

Rickard Rydell moved back to touring cars for his full-time programmes from 2002, but competed with Prodrive in the Ferrari again at the 2002 24 Hours of Le Mans, sadly retiring.