Career-high grid position for Jessica Bäckman at Anderstorp

Jessica Bäckman will follow up her reversed grid front row start a week ago at Hockenheim, with pole position for tomorrow’s reversed grid second race at Anderstorp, after scoring a strategic eighth-place in qualifying,

Bäckman, who raced at Anderstorp in the STCC last year with WestCoast Racing in a Volkswagen, has now scored both her best overall qualifying result in Sweden with eighth in the Target Competition Hyundai, which converts into pole position for Race 2.

“It was not the plan to go for reversed grid pole, but on my first lap on new tyres I made mistake so I boxed for a new set of tyres,” said Bäckman to TouringCarTimes.

“I then had understeer on my second lap so that wasn’t good either, so I was eighth.

“I was then going faster but when the team realised I was safe in eighth, they said slow down so I backed off to get the reversed grid pole, so it became our plan, but it wasn’t our plan at the beginning.”

Bäckman, who has two-time TCR Germany champion Josh Files on hand to support as coach this weekend, said the focus would now all be about Race 2 on Sunday.

“I’ll use Race 1 to work on race set-up and try to get through in one piece and work on Race 2 – it’s the highest I’ve ever started in TCR, so I’ll try to get a good start and do good first lap – and then it’s just important to manage the tyres.”