On 29 January 2018, team owner Mattias Ekström announced that he would be leaving the DTM series and concentrating on his World RX team.[2] An announcement two days later confirmed that Andreas Bakkerud would be racing for the team in 2018.[3]
After the 2018 season on December 10, EKS announced that it would end its rallycross factory program due to Audi pulling the funding. The team did however make a return in 2019, now as a privateer, with Hungarian driver Krisztián Szabó. Ekström also competed at Spa-Francorchamps, in a technical partnership with JC Raceteknik.