According to Swedish media Johan Kristoffersson has been convicted of doping and lost all his championship points from the Belgian World RX/Euro RX round at Mettet.

Swede Johan Kristoffersson, who has changed from circuit racing to Rallycross, was declared guilty of doping after taking the ‘steroid substance’ Cortisol prior to the FIA World Rallycross Championship round at Mettet in Belgium, held over the weekend of July 12 & 13. (Article to continue below picture.)

Kristoffersson (centre; note his face) won the Belgian ERX round from Robin Larsson (left) and Pontus Tidemand (right). © JKR/ERC24

“This is not nice, of course. On the other hand it is good to get the problem out of the way now. We have been under a lot of stress with all the trips we had to do. It has been a psychologically demanding process for us,” said Johan Kristoffersson to his local press.

Third of the WRX classification and winner of the ERX event were Kristoffersson’s results in Belgium. © JKR/ERC24

Tommy Kristoffersson, the father of Johan and a famous Rallycrosser of the 1990s with Audi quattro and Audi Coupé S2 SuperCars, has stated that his 25-year-old son suffered from facial paralysis before WRX Rd6 in Belgium and was given by his doctor the medicine Prednisolon [a synthetic glucocorticoid, a derivative of cortisol, which is used to treat a variety of inflammatory and auto-immune conditions], which is banned from use by the carsport governing body FIA. “We had no choice but to give the medicine to Johan. But our real mistake was not to tell the officials about it and to ask them for dispensation. It seems we would have gotten their permission in case of doing so,” said Kristoffersson Senior to Swedish media.

Johan Kristoffersson – when things were all still fine in Mettet. © JKR/ERC24

It is claimed now that Johan Kristoffersson has been disqualified from the Mettet event and lost all the points [24 points for the WRX series, dropping him from 8th to currently 14th place, and 16 points for the ERX final standings, dropping him from 4th to 11th] as well as the collected prize money. He also received a warning. However, as the Swede faced a two-year loss of his racing licence the outcome of the FIA case was rather a lucky one and could have been much worse. “We were really afraid of that, it would have been a disaster for us,” concluded Kristoffersson Junior.

Top photo: Johan Kristoffersson en route to win the Euro RX classification at Mettet in Belgium. © JKR/ERC24