Andreas Bäckman thanks the team after bouncing back from practice crash to front row

Andreas Bäckman will start his second career race in the TCR Europe Touring Car Series from second on the grid in Hungary, after the Swede missed the whole of the second free practice session after he crashed out his Target Competition Hyundai i30 N TCR at Turn 3, with the team left with just two hours to repair the car.

Bäckman will start the first race from second behind new team-mate Mat’o Homola, and has thanked his Italian team for the quick work in getting his car repaired, after he ran over the kerbs and smashed into the tyre barriers in FP2.

“I made a mistake in practice and I went over the kerb, it was nothing wrong with the car,” said Bäckman to TouringCarTimes.
“It was very tight to get the car ready for qualifying, so it was a great job by the guys as it was a big crash,” he added.

“In Q1 I think I was a bit too aggressive, and I made a few mistakes, but it was still good enough to get into Q2, and then in Q2 I had two good runs – my last run was really good so I’m really pleased with second place as I didn’t believe that would be possible.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s races, Bäckman believes it will be hard to call, with the first four cars on the grid all Hyundais.

“When all the cars are the same, it’s going to be quite hard to pass and overtake, so it’s going to be difficult – it’s hard to predict, and it’s also a very big grid, so anything can happen tomorrow I think.”