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Audi pressured into mistakes

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KMS and Audi didn’t put a foot wrong last year and Thed Björk could claim his first STCC-title. This season things have gone the other way with several mistakes by the team that have left them trailing in both championships. The team has been penalized twice this season, at Anderstorp and Gelleråsen, for having too low ride height. At the first race at Sturup they fuelled up the cars and changed tyres on the starting grid, Frank Stippler missed his position when he was on pole position at Mantorp. At the last race at Knustorp Thed Björk forgot to put out the light indicating that he had been in for his pit stop and the team also pitted two cars at the same time, in breach of the rules for the pit stops. Teammanager and driver Tommy Kristoffersson admits there have been a lot of mistakes.
– I have to admit there have been a lot of problems this year, he says. This year we haven’t had the luck we had last year.

He believes the position in the championship is a factor.
– Last year Thed was leading the championship all the way. This year we have had to play catch-up and then you have to take more risks and have smaller margins and that’s when you make mistakes. But we aren’t the only ones who have made mistakes, others have crashed in qualifying, made mistakes in the pits and so on. This is a very tough championship and everyone is pushing very hard.

He also admits that he and other teammanagers might have too much on their plate, leading to mistakes like pitting two cars at once now knowing it is not allowed.
– We have to own up to that, it was simply a lack of knowledge, he says. There is a lot to be on top of and many teammanagers in STCC have a lot of other things to take care of as well. It is very easy to be smart with hindsight but it’s very difficult when you are in the middle of everything. It is the same for everyone, racing is very tough. I know how it is in DTM and for Audi Sport in Germany, you have to take a lot of quick decisions and a lot of things are going on. It was an extreme situation at Knutstorp and I can understand that things happen they way it happened.

Reigning champion Thed Björk is the leading Audidriver and despite a drive-through this weekend he is still fourth in the championship, 12 points behind his former teammate Fredrik Ekblom who is leading the championship with two races remaining.