Photo: WTCC Media

Rickard Rydell happy with double points on WTCC return

Nika Racing’s Rickard Rydell took two top ten results after having qualified 16th at Termas de Río Hondo, and was happy with the achievement although admits it’ll be some time before the independent Swedish team will be on the pace of the factory Hondas.

“I’m quite pleased to have points in both races, as if you look at the circumstances, we received the car just a few days before it was sent here and managed to do a shakedown in the north of Italy in seven degrees,” said Rydell to TouringCarTimes. “It was quite a small circuit, so we still have absolutely no testing, so we’re learning about the car all the time, so to go from 16th to points in both races is good for us.

“We had a fairly good balance in the first race, and tried something in the second race but that didn’t work. We know we have quite a while to go before we can be on the pace of the fastest Honda, but I know we’ll get there, but it’s just a matter of time.

“We need to test a little bit, which we won’t be able to do until after Hungary, so the first part of the season we’ll be learning.”

Rydell’s run in the Honda Civic WTCC is his first in the new TC1 generation of S2000 car, after having raced the TC2T type cars in the STCC and the normally aspirated as well as diesel prior generation cars in the WTCC, and says the character of the car is more close to the Prodrive Ferrari 550 he drove after he left the BTCC in 2000.

“This car of all the touring cars I’ve driven, you have to drive it a little bit more like a GT car, as you have a little more understeer on the exit, and in a GT car with a lot of aerodynamics you go harder into the corner, and I guess this car is a little bit closer to the GT cars with just a little less power.”