Photo: DTC Media

Camilla Stephansen joins the DTC

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At the Copenhagen Racing GP there will once again be a female driver in the field, when the second round of the Danish Touringcar Championship will be held. Earlier this week JM Racing announced that it had struck a deal to field Camilla Stephansen, Horsens, in a Toyota Corolla T-Sport for the team in this year’s series.

”I am just so happy,” Camilla Stephansen says. Initially she was announced as a driver for the yet-to-appear Team Go Racing, but now she returns to the top class of Danish motor racing through the deal with her old team, JM Racing. “It was so nice to put pen to paper. Now I am going to drive. Now I am going to touch the car and drive. It has been a pleasure.”

Camilla Stephansen is a former DTC driver. She took part in a single round in 2002, when she raced a Peugeot 306 fielded bu the team of Pierre Legarth. It resulted in 19th an d 15th position for the girl racer, who decided to amass experience in classes like OK Saxo Cup and more recently the Fleggaard Renault Clio Cup, before at new attempt at the Danish Touringcar Championship was done. But she is humble with the challenges ahead.

”I expect that I can be competitive and that I won’t be the last in the field,” she says ahead of the coming race at Sturup Raceway.

”I will be happy coming second to last, ’cause I don’t have such high expectations. I have only had single day’s testing in the Toyota and that is not much compared to what other drivers have done. On top of that I expect it to be great fun to drive in the DTC series, so I think my expectations are not that high after all. But personally, I am looking forward to see how fast I am and how far up the grid I can get. Perhaps be second-to-last, fifth-to-last or even better. That is what is important to me.”

On Wednesday Camilla Stephansen sampled the Toyota. It happened at a wet Padborg Park, but still is was a satisfying experience.

“The car is quite good and wonderful to drive. The test was positive, and it will eventually be fruitful,” she says. “As a matter of fact the Toyota was actually easier to handle than the Clio which was more difficult to control. The Clio had a quite loose rear-end, but that was not the case with the DTC car, and then it is much quicker, which is also much nicer.”