Rickard Rydell

Rickard Rydell, 2011.

Richard Rydell in the Volvo at a race for the 1996 British Touring Car Championship

Rickard Rydell (born September 22, 1967 in Stockholm ) is a Swedish automobile racing driver .

Career

He started racing in a kart and won the Swedish championship in this category in 1984 and 1985. From 1986 he drove in Swedish Formula 3 and from 1989 in British Formula 3 . In this series he started for Eddie Jordan's team , won a race in Thruxton and was third overall in the championship. In 1990 he competed in the British Formula 3000 Championship and finished fourth in the overall standings. That year he also drove in a Group C1 Porsche in Japan . In 1991 he returned to British Formula 3 and took a win and pole position for the prestigious Macau Grand Prix . The following year he started in Japanese Formula 3, in which he was third overall, and won the Macau Grand Prix. In 1993 he was second in the Japanese Formula 3 championship.

In 1994 he switched to touring cars in the BTCC , where he drove a Volvo 850 station wagon. The team switched to the Volvo 850 sedan for the 1995 season and Rydell took pole position in 13 of 24 races. But some slow starts meant he could only win four races and finish third in the championship, just as he did the following season. In 1997 he only won one race, but in 1998 he secured the BTCC title and also won the Bathurst 1000 , in which he shared a Volvo S40 with Jim Richards . In 1999 and 2000 he was third in the BTCC in a Ford. In 2001 he waited for his Volvo to be ready for the European Touring Car Championship (ETCC) and in the meantime drove in a Ferrari 550 Maranello race in the FIA GT Championship .

He competed in the ETCC in 2002 with factory support and in 2003 as a private driver. In 2005 he switched to Seat . He remained loyal to this brand until 2009. In 2010, Rydell did not run.

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1990	Team Schuppan	Porsche 962C	Wayne Taylor	Hurley Haywood	Rank 12
2002	Prodrive	Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello	Alain Menu	Tomáš Enge	failure	Fire
2004	Prodrive Racing	Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello	Colin McRae	Darren Turner	Rank 9
2007	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin DBR9	David Brabham	Darren Turner	5th place and class win

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
2002	Prodrive	Ferrari 550 Maranello	Tomáš Enge	Alain Menu	Rank 28

Web links

Commons : Rickard Rydell  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• official homepage