Front-wheel drive rookie Philip Morin celebrates Knutstorp pole

Philip Morin has celebrated pole position for his first outing in a front-wheel drive touring car, after a strong performance in qualifying in which he set a new lap record for a TCR car at Ring Knutstorp.

Despite a last-minute weight adjustment by TCR, with the Cupra TCRs entered in the STCC asked to carry an additional 20kg of national ballast, Morin led the way through both parts of qualifying, following up his time of 59.400 in Q1 with a time of 59.291 in Q2 to secure pole position ahead of team-mate Daniel Haglöf.

It’s Morin’s first race in the STCC since 2016, when he raced the rear-wheel drive SEAT León STCC for PWR Racing in the final year of the Solution-F formula, with most of his racing experience in recent years being in Porsche racing.

“It’s my first race in front-wheel drive so there are a lot of new things for me, but the team and the speed that all of our drivers have had both in the pre-season testing and also today has been incredible,” said Morin to TouringCarTimes.

“In qualifying we managed to get the pace out of the tyres and put it together. I’ve been struggling personally to get the peak out of the new tyres, but in qualifying we managed to do it, and we had incredible speed.

“Obviously both my team-mates have been incredibly fast, so it’ll be great to work together with them tomorrow. My objective is to get off the line as quickly as possible. It’s also my first time starting in front-wheel drive, but if I can get the start right, we can have a good race.”