Grönholm is currently approaching his ninth
full season in the FIA World Rallycross Championship – the dual-surface discipline’s
top-tier – and his third with CE Dealer Team by Volvo Construction Equipment.
The Finn has finished third in the title table in
each of the past three campaigns, and may well have clinched the coveted crown
in 2019 had it not been for a bout of appendicitis that ruled him out of two
rounds.
As the son of two-time FIA World Rally Champion,
Marcus Grönholm – whose father, Ulf, was a double title-winner on the domestic
rallying scene – it might be assumed that Niclas was always going to follow in
the family footsteps by embarking upon a career of his own in the sport. Not
so, he insists.
“I never really wanted to be a racing driver,” the
27-year-old Kauniainen native mused in an exclusive interview with Czech website, Autonoviny.cz. “My dad never pushed me to do any kind of
motorsport, and my mum wanted me to stay out of rallying for as long as
possible, so that was never really in my plans.
“I got interested in rallycross when I followed
my dad for a couple of years in GRC in the US. Normally, when he went rallying,
I didn’t travel with him, but when he did rallycross after his rally career, I
started to join him on trips and got hooked.
“I entered some grassroots, folkrace-style
competitions and kind of accidentally ended up doing rallycross in 2014. I’ve participated
in some rallies over the past years too and have always been tempted a little
bit, but the choice to go into rallycross rather than rallying was pretty clear
for me. My dad enjoys both disciplines and understands that my strengths are
probably in rallycross, and he has helped me a lot to achieve my goals.”
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