Eyvind Brynidlsen's ERC win in Sweden was long overdue - but his approach to the event was enlightening
Photography by Red Bull
Words by Luke Barry
Weeks earlier, it was he who was helping to call the moment. Performing the co-commentator role for the European Rally Championship, Eyvind Brynildsen was on the outside looking in.
But in Sweden he was on the inside. He was the moment.
Trading the microphone for the steering wheel, an international rally win had been long overdue was finally his at Royal Rally of Scandinavia.
But 4.8 miles prior to his crowning moment, all the Norwegian could think was: “I have four minutes to f*** this up.”
The mental aspect of rallying cannot be underestimated, and speaking to DirtFish days after what he admits was the biggest result of his career, Brynildsen offers a fascinating insight into the reality of mentally managing success at the highest level.
Brynildsen's Toyota won under 12% of the stages - but that was part of the plan
It looked as though the odds were stacked against Brynidlsen last week. While some of his competitors had driven as recently as the week before, the 37-year-old hadn’t competed since January due to a lengthy pause in the Norwegian championship’s schedule.
He’d done a short test on the Monday prior to the event, but tested just the soft compound tire (not super-soft) in order to preserve budget.
However he knew that the car beneath him (Toyota GR Yaris Rally2), the tires (Pirelli) and his team were a package he could trust.
“I’m always optimistic,” Brynildsen tells DirtFish, “but I’m always realistic as well. My wife says that I’m too positive all the time, but I knew that if everything clicks together, we can win.
“But I was hoping. I was not expecting.”
However when the rally hit the forests, Brynildsen hit the front. Briefly losing the lead to Isak Reiersen after SS3, the Norwegian retook it after four and never looked back.
He only won two of the 17 stages, but that was deliberate. His was the perfect demonstration in managing a lead.
“I felt we were doing a really, really clever rally from the start to the end, the whole team and everybody,” Brynidlsen admits.
The smile was never wiped from Eyvind's face throughout Royal Rally of Scandinavia
“We managed to avoid mistakes. We were consistently fast. We only won a few stages, but still I was not stressed with being second on the stage all the time, because I could see the other drivers were not that consistent.
“Our goal was just to have fun, but at the same time, be professional and fast and everything, and we had so much fun. At the last service, myself and Isak, we sat in two chairs, just like sunbathing, had a little coffee and smiled that we were really lucky to do this rally and have some fun.”
As we’re about to discover, enjoyment was the ultimate route to making Royal Rally of Scandinavia the greatest performance of Brynildsen’s career.
“When you take all the emotions, and the way we did the rally, it makes the weekend the best, I think, we’ve ever done,” he says. “On top of that, my co-driver [Jørn Listerud] is also my brother-in-law, he is together with my little sis. So it’s like a family affair at the same time.
“So yeah, it must be the best rally emotionally, and also the way we did the rally.”
Brynildsen made the job look easy, but it was anything but.
Moments of doubt always creep in, particularly when leading as you suddenly feel as if you have something to lose.
However Brynildsen has worked hard to mentally manage his way through an event, as evidenced in Värmland.
“My approach is always on Monday, it’s work. Whatever happens, it’s work on Monday. So I try to just relax,” he shares.
“And I think the key is that too many [drivers] are overthinking. They are trying to make it too complicated because basically it’s quite easy. You have to be fastest from A to B. And if you’re starting to think too complicated and you’re doing your own mind game, then it makes you stressed and your shoulders will be really high.
“So in between the stages, we listen to music on the headset. We have a little laugh. I’m really relaxed. I can talk on the phone with friends on the road section, I just try to think about something else. And then when you get into that zone, my only worries were all the time I had [my head] trying to tell you that, ‘Ah, now you’re going to win’ and I had to say ‘no, no, away with those thoughts’.
“It’s one stage by stage and then I was thinking ‘OK, now you’re gonna crash’, so then ‘no, no I’m not gonna crash’. You know, physically sometimes I’m touching my left shoulder to move away bad thoughts and over optimistic thoughts, so I tried to balance them by physically moving them.
“Sometimes you have this little devil on your shoulder that’s telling you that you’re doing mistakes, you will like f*** it up. So I tried to physically move that little sucker off my left shoulder,” he laughs, “and when you are in control of all those crazy thoughts and you are just enjoying, having fun and going through in your mind how lucky you are to do this thing, then you’re really in the zone and then you can push so hard.
“And when you know you can trust the pacenotes, trust the car, then everything feels a bit more easy than on a difficult day.”
Brynildsen will physically brush himself to symbolically sweep mental demons from his shoulders
This is the zone Brynidlsen managed to slip into during Royal Rally of Scandinavia, but his comments are fascinating.
Us mere mortals cannot fully understand how it feels to be in the thick of a fight for an international rally win, but Brynildsen’s insight reveals the emotions are exactly how you and I would probably feel.
The difference is the very best can successfully deal with it, and not let their intrusive thoughts overrule them.
This happened at two key moments last weekend; before the third-to-last stage when his lead had been eroded to just 2.8s, and before the powerstage.
Brynildsen recalls: “They were catching up time and I felt I was really on the safe side. I was not driving 100%. There was a delay before the next stage, so I fell asleep for a few minutes. I was sitting there and like sleeping, literally sleeping.
“Then I woke up and I didn’t say anything to my co-driver, but I said to myself ‘Eyvind, now you need to do something. Now you need to step up’. So I stepped up and I raised the pace by like 10% and we took six seconds from [Roope] Korhonen and three and a half from Isak. Then I knew now it’s all about controlling it to the finish.
Tactically timing his attack was key to success
“And even though I felt I had really good control on the last stage, before the last stage, I felt I was dropping the clutch five seconds before the green light because I was so nervous. And everything was going through my mind, even though I felt really the last few years, I have stopped being nervous.
“There’s nothing scary, [but] the only thing I was thinking was ‘you’ve got four minutes now to f*** it up. I’ve got four minutes now to show everybody watching live TV that I will crash. I will do something that will mess everything up’. So it’s really hard to work sometimes with your brain that the focus needs to be on the next corner, then the next corner.
“You have to like do Pac-Man – I have to eat myself through the stage, corner by corner.”
It’s another brilliant analogy that perfectly illustrates the mentality. But how does Brynildsen deal with it?
“Every stage I’ve got a little memory – I write a little memory note on my phone,” he reveals. “So like this stage starts with this crest and then I pass the woman with the dog on the recce. And then it’s flat all the way to this corner with the big stone on the outside. Now we need to be a bit cool because it’s very slippery for like a kilometer. When you reach the field, then you know it’s like blah blah blah.
“I try to make every stage like an interesting story. So when I’m nervous or if I’m a bit like under pressure, I like to see the stage as a story. And I try to enjoy the story which is told by the co-driver with my notes in the memory from the two minutes before I start the stage.
“It’s strange. We are thinking quite a lot. But I try to make it a funny day and am always thinking how lucky we are to do this sport.”
Brynildsen envisaged this moment, so that he'd believe it and make it become real
That’s a recurring theme through our entire conversation with Brynildsen – enjoyment and having an awareness of how fortunate he is to be rallying.
“Even if I lose a second, I know that all the spectators during that stage would love to jump in and change into my shoes,” he smiles. “So I think it’s all about having fun and enjoying all the time.”
A key part of transferring that joy into success is manifesting the moment – placing himself there earlier that day, so that when he experiences it, it feels normal.
“I try to practice and rehearse what’s going to happen,” Brynildsen says. “When I was on that roof [celebrating winning the rally], I’ve already gone through how it will be standing on that roof.
“I tried to make this story I tell you about, I try to make that story happen, so when you’re going through it in your mind enough times, you start to believe it because it’s like a truth you’re telling yourself that you can do it.
“This will be like this and you will meet Molly [Pettit, stage-end reporter] and Molly will be there on the stage and I will jump up on the roof and I will do this and this.
Victory in the ERC for Brynildsen - who's usually a championship commentator - was a career high
“This is something you don’t tell anybody on the rally because they will think you’re crazy and your ego is too big! But this is something you need to tell yourself in front of the mirror in the morning that you’re good enough and you will manage. You will be able to be on that roof and you will do the Landon Norris champagne. You will do this, this and this. And when you’re there in the situation,
“I’m familiar with the situation, so it makes it easier for me to fulfill the dream and the story. It’s kind of maybe crazy sometimes, but I’m trying to create this little history, the story in my head.”
Of course it doesn’t always work out like that. When has everything in rallying gone to plan?
But Brynildsen believes it’s all about how you prepare; never about good or bad luck. Do everything right, and the result you’ve threatened to achieve for years can become yours.
“I learned from Denis Giraudet who was with me for two years, and he said ‘you should never discover anything on a rally. You need to go through everything’. And I never blame bad luck, because most of the time you create your own luck.
“So that’s why I try to go through my little story in my head and try to make sure I can fulfill that dream. And very often it goes well, but this at an international level… this is maybe the best weekend ever for me.
“But I cannot do it alone – it is a massive team effort. And I think happiness is the key. Be nice to each other and enjoy every single meter, then success is coming just around the corner I think.
“It took me some years to win a rally like this, so be patient and have fun it will be there.”
Words:Luke Barry
Tags: ERC, ERC 2025, Eyvind Brynildsen, Royal Rally of Scandinavia, Royal Rally of Scandinavia 2025
Publish Date June 4, 2025 DirtFish
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