Wet set-up gamble doesn’t work out for Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky

Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky put her exit from the first segment of STCC qualifying at Knutstorp down to a wet-weather setup gamble which didn’t pay off.

The 24-year-old from Karlstad, who dovetails her STCC season with a full campaign in ADAC GT Masters in Germany, had looked set to make it into Q2 after setting the tenth fastest time in a rain-affected session.

However, her PWR Junior team gambled on more rain falling to help get more speed out of the tyres. When the rain dissipated, she fell down to 12th, where she will start all three of Saturday’s races.

“Of course I wanted to make it into Q2,” Åhlin-Kottulinsky said after qualifying to TouringCarTimes.

“Our set-up was quite good for the heavy rain but when the rain stopped, we were simply wrong with it. So there was no chance to improve my time,” she added.

Audi-backed driver Åhlin-Kottulinsky suffered from heavy understeer when the conditions improved and lamented the fact that the set-up on her RS3 LMS was not fit for the track when it mattered the most.

“It was too soft a set-up really so I had a lot of understeer towards the end. We should have had more of a dry set-up than a wet one, which worked in the beginning.”

Despite falling foul of the weather in qualifying, Åhlin-Kottulinsky is keen to start her touring car career strongly.

She said: “I will fight for sure! I still want to be top five in the races. It’s a long way but a tight field so hopefully we’ll get everything right on the car tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.”