Fredrik Larsson: “I was never informed of the drive through”

BMW Dealer Team driver Fredrik Larsson looked to be set for a victory fight with Thed Björk in the STCC race at Solvalla. But a drive through penalty which Larsson failed to take turned in to a black flag, dashing the hopes of a victory.
“I was never informed of the drive through penalty and all of a sudden I was black flagged. That is of course a disappointment and if I had known that I got the penalty I would have taken it and still saved a lot of points,” said Larsson.

The team claimed that they were not informed of the penalty on their screens at the pit wall.
“Larsson’s penalty and black flag was a misunderstanding. Our screens in the pitlane had no information that Larsson had a penalty and when we finally got the message, we didn’t get to know why and two laps later we were black flagged. It seems that we got the information later than others, but in the end I guess we have to take the blame for it all,” said team manager Dick Jönsson-Wigroth.

Larsson got the penalty for tapping Volvo driver Linus Ohlsson in to a spin from second place. Ohlsson rejoined the track in fifth, almost colliding with manufacturer colleague Fredrik Ekblom when spinning his car back on track, while Larsson was able to continue in second place until he got the black flag.
“It was a very small touch on Linus. It was all bunched up [in the corner] and he turned in and I unfortunately touched him just when he turned in and he spun,” said Larsson.

The zero points for Larsson meant that he drops to fourth from third in the championship, 31 points from race winner and championship leader Björk.
“It was really disappointing as we were quick enough for victory at Solvalla,” said Larsson.