Klara Andersson: ‘We want to show that being female shouldn’t hold you back’

In 2022, Klara Andersson made World Rallycross history by becoming the first female driver to climb onto the World RX podium. On International Women’s Day 2025, The CE Dealer Team driver talks to EV Powered about how electrified World RX and Extreme E have helped advance her career, plus why her native Sweden serves as a beacon for gender equality in motorsport.

“Honestly, my gender has never been an issue for me during my career,” Klara Andersson explains via FaceTime. The weather is sunny, and aligns oh-so well with the 25 year-old Swede’s personality. “Throughout my career, I was never treated any differently to any of the guys.”

Andersson is a product of the Sweden National Junior Team, a programme focused on nurturing domestic motorsport talent – male and female – to represent the Nordic nation of 10.5 million on the international stage.

The programme’s alumni include some of Sweden’s most famous rallycross exports including brothers Timmy and Kevin Hansen, and seven-time World RX title winner, Johan Kristofferson; the most successful driver in the sport’s 11-year history.

Prior to joining the Sweden National Junior Team, Andersson followed the footsteps of her parents and older sister by competing on the local rallycross scene as a privateer. She cites her upbringing as what prompted her to strive towards becoming a World RX driver.

“I grew up in a rallycross family, and my sister was even part of the National Team for a while. I always looked up to her, and it was my dream to copy what she was doing,” says Andersson. “I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I was competing in my little BMW 120i in local rallycross. I wrote an email to the boss of the Sweden National Junior Team saying ‘hello, I’d love to join your programme’ and outlined my three year career plan and ambitions.

“I got a call from him later on saying I was in for 2020, but they’d had their eye on me for a while as they have people out and about at races and talent scouting. I think if I had to give advice to any girl or boy wanting to get started in motorsport, it is to take a risk and push yourself a little bit.

“When I joined, I was never treated any differently for being a woman. In Sweden, the level of rallycross and rallying is so high – we’ve had Suzanne Hansen, Pernilla Solberg, and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottalinsky – all competing at the top over the years. I can’t put my finger on exactly why this is, and it’s something I think about a lot. Nonetheless, I think it’s something Sweden can be very proud of.”

After finishing seventh overall in World RX’s RX2e feeder championship in 2021, Andersson had sufficiently impressed onlookers to sign her up for the big league. The Xite Energy Racing team contracted her to race alongside its owner, Oliver Bennett, for the 2022 Extreme E season.

Prior to the Extreme E season opener in Saudi Arabia, Andersson was struck down with Covid, her contract cancelled. Her chance in the all-electric championship would come when the ABT Cupra outfit came calling to partner Nasser Al-Attiyah later in the year. She went on to win her second ever Extreme E race with them. She cites the championship as being pivotal to closing the gender gap in international motorsport.

“Extreme E has played a huge role in developing female drivers over the last few years,” Andersson says. “It was the first ever form of motorsport to take EVs off-roading, and it was the first time a championship had ever paired a male and female driver together in the same car going around these remote corners of the world.

“Having teammates like Nasser Al-Attiyah and Timo Scheider was invaluable, because they were always happy to help. Extreme E was something truly inspiring, and I love to see the changes it brought happening. The gap between the boys and the girls is now so close.”

From the maiden Extreme E season in 2021 to its final rounds in 2024 before switching to hydrogen-power, the performance gap between its drivers had closed by 70%. When the championship began, the female drivers were on average 4.5 seconds slower than the males. Fast-forward two years, and the gap had shrunk to 1.1 seconds.

Andersson’s performances in electrified off-road racing also caught the eye of the PWR-run CE Dealer Team by Volvo Construction Equipment. For the 2022 season – the year when World RX planned to switch from ICE to EV – she was signed by the Swedish team to drive alongside Niclas Grönholm, a World RX event winner and the son of two-time World Rally Champion, Marcus.

If and when the 2025 World RX season eventually gets underway, the Andersson/Grönholm pairing will continue racing under the CE Dealer Team banner.

During her maiden World RX season, Andersson smashed the sport’s glass ceiling by becoming the first female driver to climb the podium, courtesy of a third-place alongside eventual winner, Grönholm, at the fifth and sixth rounds of the season in Montealegre, Portugal.

“Portugal 2022 was such a special day, and it was very nice to be part of history.” Andersson recalls with a smile. “World RX was something I’d dreamt about since I was young, so finally being up there was such an honour. In the aftermath of that, a lot of young girls started coming up to me saying ‘oh, we saw what you did in Portugal, we want to race, and we want to be like you.’

“From that point on, I really started to see a movement start to happen, because we hadn’t really had any female drivers in World RX. Even now it’s a very male-dominated sport, so if I can just be there as a role model performing at the highest level of rallycross, I hope that I can show all the little girls out there who want to be part of motorsport that it is possible.”

Referring back to Sweden’s progressive attitude towards women in motorsport, Andersson outlines that the open-minded atmosphere within the PWR-run CE Dealer team is what has allowed her – and other team members – to thrive in the sport.

“Since electrification really became a thing in the motorsport world,” PWR has fully embraced it – don’t forget they prep the electric drivetrains in STCC, too,” she explains. “Volvo Construction Equipment is very strong on inclusivity and electrification, so we can really use World RX as a platform to drive these values.

“We also have two female mechanics on our team, and we want to show that being female shouldn’t hold you back. You can be a driver, you can be an engineer, you can be involved with events and PR, you can be anything you want to be.”

As for the CE Dealer Team giving World RX its first female champion? Andersson is working on it.

“Well, Johan Kristofferson will be really, really tough to beat!” she wraps up with a laugh. “One day, though. One day…”