1,000 Greatest Drivers: Rickard Rydell

Not the best Swedish driver, but arguably the best driver for a Swedish manufacturer.

Rydell is one of a cavalcade of touring car drivers from continental Europe who ran roughshod over the British Touring Car Championship in the ‘90s and to a lesser extent the 2000s. This was an unusual period for the series as outside the period 1993-2008, when drivers from continental Europe won 10 out of 16 championships, drivers from the UK have won all other championships since 1958 with the exception of John Love from Rhodesia (which at the time was still a British colony before it eventually became Zimbabwe), Frank Gardner from Australia (which is still technically part of the British commonwealth), and Alec Poole from Ireland (who might’ve been the worst BTCC champion and the one I am least likely to list). It almost felt like the rest of Europe was colonizing the BTCC at that time as the talent was clearly elsewhere. Several of these drivers including Yvan Muller, Alain Menu, and Fabrizio Giovanardi became major stars and won World Touring Car Championship titles later or Alain Menu’s case came very close to doing so, but it didn’t happen for Rydell. He was okay in the WTCC, but he had a weird decline in the 2000s relative to those other drivers and was substantially better in his BTCC years than his WTCC years when those other drivers really weren’t. I still think you could make a case for Rydell as the best Swedish driver of the ‘90s though. I’d take him over Stefan Johansson and probably over Kenny Bräck, but the fourteen-time European Rally Champion Kenneth Hansen, the father of current World Rallycross stars Kevin and Timmy, probably wins. I actually don’t have Kenneth Hansen as a lock yet. Note to self. And I could not resist writing “landing a seat with… SEAT”. You have to take the opportunities for puns as they come. I just barely missed getting this done by midnight, but oh well.