Mads Ostberg was a young man in a hurry, and his early career template shows remarkable similarities to the World Rally Championship’s current pacesetter and two-time title-winner Kalle Rovanpera.
From Ostberg’s teenaged years, there was support from a successful and enthusiastic father and he was picked up for his flair and ambition by a works team before he had finished his schooling.
Subaru Norway selected the relative novice to handle its barely three-year-old Impreza WRC machine and he blitzed national events in 2005 and 2006 while quickly spreading his wings onto the global stage. Just three years into his driving career and at the age of 17, he was battling the likes of Petter Solberg, Marcus Gronholm and Jari-Matti Latvala at rallying’s top table.
A dream to don the same Subaru factory colours as made famous by one of his early heroes, Colin McRae, and Ostberg’s countryman Solberg, the Japanese firm’s shock withdrawal from the WRC ahead of the 2009 season scuppered his chances.
There was a shot at the full WRC with first M-Sport and then Citroen employing the ambitious competitor. His victory on Rally Portugal in 2012 in a privately run Ford remains a stand-out result – even though that was taken when others were stripped from the results sheet.
Ostberg himself admits that there were some poor career decisions along the way that might have veered him off course, but he has built a strong relationship with Citroen and has become one of its most adept performers at the wheel of its Rally2-spec challenger. That was underlined with his European Rally Championship win in Hungary last term, and now 36-year-old shows no signs of slowing down.
He was about to board a plane for the Qatar International Rally last week when MN caught up with him and we are grateful for his time – former teammate Kris Meeke might not be so pleased although, as Ostberg points out, it is all in good jest...
Question: What started the rallying passion in you: can you remember the first time you saw a rally car?
James Hilton
Via email
Mads Ostberg: “I had no choice: the passion came from my father [Morten], who was a rally driver. I was always around the service park with him, so it is impossible to remember when I first saw a rally car. I was a baby in the service park and as I got a bit older, I was out watching the stages. It has always been a part of my life and I can’t remember anything before that…”
MN: Was it always your ambition to follow in your father’s wheeltracks and take to the stages yourself?
“Not at all. I didn’t even realise myself that I could start rallying until I was something like 16 years old. It wasn’t really in my mind. I had started
