Bakkerud: When I see those photos, I’m like, ‘did this really happen?!’
Andreas Bakkerud has described his two seasons alongside Ken Block in the FIA World Rallycross Championship as ‘an incredible journey’, admitting he sometimes still has to pinch himself when looking back.
Having clinched consecutive Super1600 (now Euro RX3) class crowns with SET Promotion in the FIA European Rallycross Championship and a brace of Supercar (now Euro RX1) victories, Bakkerud stepped up to World RX in its inaugural campaign in 2014, spending that year and the next competing for Swedish powerhouse Olsbergs MSE and winning three events along the way.
It was during the second of those seasons that he received a message that would change the course of his career...
“All of a sudden, I got a text,” reflected the Norwegian – who recently finished third in the 2026 Euro RX1 standings after triumphing at Nyirád and Mondello Park – in an interview with Talking Loose. “I still remember it today: ‘Hey, this is Ken Block. I might have a racing opportunity for you next year. Would you have time for a call?’
“I called him, flew over to Park City not long after, had dinner with Ken and [Block’s wife] Lucy and agreed to race together in 2016, without even knowing what car it was! I always thought that winter that I was going to drive an M-Sport Ford Fiesta...”
A Ford it would be, but not a Fiesta, as Bakkerud and Block headed into battle in a pair of Hoonigan Racing Division Focus RS monsters. It was a model that would provide the Bergen native with one of his most memorable successes, as he popularly prevailed on home soil in Hell in his fifth outing in the car and followed that up with another victory three weeks later during Höljes’ famous ‘Magic Weekend’, on his way to third in the title table.
The team-mates rapidly became firm friends, and Bakkerud recalls how 2016 and 2017 turned into a whirlwind ride on and off-track...
“Those two years were the most fun ever!” the 35-year-old acknowledged. “Not only did we do all these races, we travelled the whole world together – me, Ken, his family, everyone. It was just a really cool time.
“There were so many places I’d never seen. We stayed in fancy hotels, we had insane meals that I can’t even explain how good they were. One time in a Nobu restaurant in Caesars Palace, I think one little steak cost $300 USD – and I got two of them! That was mind-blowing!
“We stayed in some fancy houses; I think the Kardashian family had stayed in one of them the week before. We skied in Park City, and you know, I’m a Norwegian guy born with skis on my feet!
“I made a lot of new friends in America. I remember there was the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. The whole city was partying, and all of a sudden, there were celebrities that you see every day on TV in Ken’s house. I was like, ‘hey, good morning, hi’, making eggs for one of the characters in ‘That ‘70s Show’! For a simple guy from Bergen, it was pretty wild and very different.
“It was an incredible journey and it went by so quickly; I should have written it all down in a book at the time, because it was just epic and not many people get to experience something like that – it was like something from another world. When I scroll on my phone and see old photos from ’16 and ‘17, I’m like, did this really happen?!’”
The dream, sadly, could not last. In October 2017, Ford Performance – and by extension, Hoonigan Racing Division – announced that it was leaving the series. For Bakkerud, it was a hammer blow.
“It was a big surprise that Ford and Hoonigan pulled out, because two weeks prior to that, I’d sat in a restaurant with Ken, only me and him, and we had discussed my future and talked about a five-to-ten-year plan,” he recollected. “Then all of a sudden, two weeks later, it was gone.”
As one door closed, another opened, as the next influential person in Bakkerud’s glittering career in the sport stepped into the breach – 2016 world champion, Mattias Ekström.
“Mattias had been calling me maybe four times a week since we’d raced together in 2013 at Höljes, where I’d won my first Supercar race,” he revealed. “So I gave him a call and said, ‘Hey, I’m on the market. You want to merge?’ He immediately gave me a great offer that I couldn’t decline, and we had an awesome year during which I learned a lot.
“Ken was one character and Mattias is a whole different character, but they were very similar in many ways – very professional and very eager to be the best. It was cool to witness both guys. Audi Sport is such a big brand and motorsport factory, the level at which they did things was incredible and their range of knowledge was huge. It was amazing to be a part of all that.”
