Last season’s big revelation in the RallyX North series, with one victory and a total of four podium finishes to his name, Filip Martinsson more than confirmed his talent last weekend in Riga.

Just like his performance in 2024 at Tierp, where he managed to finish on the podium alongside Johan Kristoffersson and Ole-Christian Veiby, the three-time Swedish Rallycross champion got his season off to a similar start in Race 2 in Riga, where he finished third behind Janis Baumanis and Maiko Tamm.

This was a fair reward for the 24-year-old after a difficult first day of competition. Despite finishing fifth in the intermediate standings in his Renault Clio 3 in Race 1, a power steering failure in the semi-finals put an end to his hopes on the demanding Latvian track.

‘We had really good pace throughout the weekend, but Race 1 quickly turned out to be very frustrating with the power steering problem, especially on a track as difficult as Riga with all those corners,’ explained Filip.

‘In those conditions, it was difficult to hope for anything, but I really enjoyed myself behind the wheel in Race 2.’

Proof of this was that, despite finishing eighth in the intermediate standings after qualifying, Filip managed to set the fifth fastest lap of the second race of the weekend, just behind Mikko Ikonen and Viktor Vranckx.

He confirmed his top form in the final by taking third place on the podium.

“It’s a fantastic performance because it’s typically for results like this that we work so hard behind the scenes. Admittedly, our first weekend of the season wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but our plan worked perfectly in the final, even though we were only starting from the third row of the grid. Honestly, we couldn’t have asked for anything better. Now we hope to get even closer to the RallyX leaders in the next round of the championship in Finland.”