When is the FIA World Championship winner joining Dirt 4?

We talked to EKS at the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Hell in Norway to find out.

Why was Mattias Ekströms Audi S1 missing from Dirt 4 at release? We had a chat with EKS during the FIA World Rallycross Championship at Hell, Norway, to find out.

The sixth round of this year's FIA World Rallycross Championship in Hell was well underway when we met up with Lukas Stelmaszyk, press officer for Mattias Ekström and Toomas Heikkinen, who was nice enough to have a chat with us regarding the missing Audis in the latest Dirt game.

We didn't waste much time and went straight to the question about why EKS isn't a part of Dirt 4. Apparently, Codemasters and EKS have been talking for a while about the rights to the Audi S1. Stelmaszyk tells me that a deal is very close, and they hope to have the cars available in the next update.

"We have provided all the photos and information about the car needed to get the car in the game. Now we just have some fine adjustments to make for the deal to be signed by both parties," Stelmasznyk told us. But how long can we expect to wait until we are able to drive the cars, he couldn't really say.

"With the game just being released, I would presume it might take some time. Since this is more Codemasters' area of expertise, I can't really say more than that."

With that in mind, we tried to contact Paul Coleman, the chief game designer at Codemasters, to see if he could give us a better answer. Unfortunately, Mr. Coleman was not available for a comment.

If we were to take a guess ourselves, we would presume an update like this would come alongside an update with all the other 2017 liveries, which Coleman has hinted will happen in the future.

Even if the Audi is not available in the game yet, EKS is still showboating Dirt 4 on their stand. Both simulators at their stand have Dirt 4 preloaded, and it was busy even during races this weekend at Hell.

All that's left is to see if they are able to offer the Audi in-game at some point this season. Lukas was positive, and that's good news for us. A more realistic lineup is always ideal in any game, and to do that you really need the reigning world champion and his team.