Polestar’s Thed Björk on Russia: “This was a weekend to forget”

The rain may have shuffled the order, putting Lada and Honda ahead of Citroën over the course of the Moscow Raceway weekend, but it played against the Swedish Polestar Cyan Racing team, who leave the circuit empty handed, with driver Thed Björk saying the results of the weekend were ones for the team to forget.

With the rain lashing down ahead of qualifying, the Polestar Volvos, which have always declared they’ve had a lack of wet weather testing, found themselves banished to the back of the field, with Fredrik Ekblom qualifying in 13th and and Björk in 15th.

In the races, the team didn’t fare much better, with Ekblom finishing where he started in 13th in the opening race, and Björk ending the race in the pits with an engine problem.

In the main race, Ekblom finished 12th and Björk 15th, again outside of the points, Björk also forced to pit to remove some loose bodywork from his Volvo S60 TC1.

“This is a weekend to forget in terms of results, but not in terms of what we have learned,” said Björk. “We have taken a vital step forward in the wet compared to the wet races in Marrakech. The road is still long to reach what we want with the car, but it will come in time.”

Team-mate Ekblom, who is the best-placed of Volvo’s drivers in the standings in 12th on 35 points, said the team need to arrange some wet weather testing soon.

“This is the most difficult period as a racing driver in a new programme when we are starting to come close to revealing the true potential of the car, but need to take two steps back in order to move one forward,” said Ekblom. “The situation is quite simple, we need more tests and especially in the wet. We will get that, it is just a matter of time and patience.”