Bakkerud rose through the junior ranks of European rallycross, winning the FIA European Rallycross Championship in the Super1600 category in consecutive years, 2011 and 2012. These back-to-back titles established him as one of the most promising young talents in the discipline.
In 2013 he stepped up to the Supercar class in the FIA European Rallycross Championship, entering with a private Citroën DS3. He finished fourth in the standings that year and took two wins, an impressive debut for a privateer operation against more established, factory-supported teams.
Bakkerud entered the FIA World Rallycross Championship Supercar class in 2014 with the Olsbergs MSE outfit, driving a Ford Fiesta backed by Ford. He took two wins and three second-place finishes during the season, placing fifth in the overall standings in his first World RX campaign. In 2015 he secured a win, three podiums, and eight top-five results, finishing fourth in the championship.
The 2016 season brought a move to the American Hoonigan Racing Division, where he partnered team founder Ken Block in a Ford Focus RS RX. The season proved to be his most spectacular in World RX to that point: he took three wins and six podiums, finishing third in the championship standings.
The defining moment of Bakkerud's 2016 season came at Round Five of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, held at Hell in Norway. Bakkerud dominated the entire event in a fashion that had no precedent in World RX: he won all four of his qualifier races, a feat no driver had previously achieved in a single weekend, then won both his semi-final and the final. The overall victory was simultaneously the first-ever World RX win for the Ford Focus RS RX, the first World RX win for Hoonigan Racing Division, and the first time a Norwegian driver had won the championship round held on home soil in Norway.
With Hoonigan Racing withdrawing from rallycross at the end of 2017, Bakkerud announced in January 2018 that he would join EKS Audi Sport, driving an Audi S1 EKS RX quattro. In a season dominated by the Volkswagen Polos of Johan Kristoffersson and Petter Solberg, he finished third in the 2018 championship with six podiums before EKS also departed the series.
For 2019, Bakkerud remained in World RX with the Monster Energy RX Cartel team, continuing to use the EKS Audis alongside teammate Liam Doran. He accumulated six podiums during the season and finished it tied on points with Timmy Hansen. Because Bakkerud had won only once compared to Hansen's five victories, he was classified second in the final standings.
Bakkerud claimed the FIA European Rallycross Championship title in 2021, adding a senior European crown to the junior titles he had won a decade earlier. He has since expanded his programme to include Nitro Rallycross from 2021 and Extreme E from 2023, competing across multiple off-road and electric motorsport platforms.
Bakkerud is not related to Christian Bakkerud, the former DTM racing driver.
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