Thed Björk heads to Circuit de Pau-Ville next week (May 7-8) for the start of the fifth WTCR − FIA World Touring Car Cup season with the “same motivation” he had when he was gearing up to win the 2017 FIA World Touring Car Championship.
Part of what is now a three-strong Cyan Performance Lynk & Co line-up following the addition of Ma Qing Hua to the squad alongside Santiago Urrutia, the 41-year-old ever-swift Swede is ready to push for more World Touring Car gold aboard his Goodyear-equipped Lynk & Co 03 TCR.
On winning the title…
“I have all the possibilities in the team. As the winner of last year’s Teams’ title we will try everything we can to defend the title. I have really good team-mates that will also push me and if you are going to win the title you have to beat your team-mates and then everybody else. I am as motivated now as was in 2016 when I was gearing up to be the world champion the following season. I am so happy to be in that position, to have the same motivation.”
On being prepared…
“We feel prepared. It’s nice to start the season with everybody at zero. It also feels that we have some momentum now because we have quite a lot of races coming up. It’s not like we have one race and then there’s a break. Everybody will be fully pushing to August and that’s really nice and personally that feels good. We figured out some small things on the car last year. It’s not a new car, it’s the same car but if we can tweak the small things to make it better on every circuit that will be really good. Everybody else is doing the same but it feels like going back to a more normal situation this season with more normal circuits that we had in the past, like Vila Real.”
On having more team-mates with a fifth Lynk & Co 03 TCR on the grid…
“Everybody knows it’s still going to be super-tight this season because the competition is always super-tight. It’s more a headache for my team boss Fredrik [Wáhlen] to manage five cars than it is for me. Everybody who runs a race team can understand the logistical challenge but that’s not my focus, that’s my team’s focus. That’s their challenge to push everything and they can do it.”
On Ma Qing Hua…
“He’s a strong competitor, fast and has a lot of experience. We are all ambassadors for the Lynk & Co brand but he can help us become even better ambassadors through his communication in China.”
On racing on street tracks again…
“I’ve never been to Pau but I have been doing a lot of work on the simulator and it just feels so good to throw the car around between the barriers. It’s like a happy feeling when I am driving. When you have this positive driving feeling, this happy driving feeling everything feels smooth and you enjoy being out on the circuit. This is one of my strengths and I really enjoy street circuits. I disagree you have to be precise, in fact you have to throw the car around but don’t throw it in the wall, you have to throw it around between the walls to be really quick.”
