Jessica Bäckman looking forward to battle with mentor Lloyd on track

Jessica Bäckman will start ninth for this afternoon’s race at Hockenheim, and the 21-year-old Swede will start just behind her former TCR UK team-mate and STCC racing coach Dan Lloyd at the German circuit, and is looking forward to the fight.

The two Bäckmans both made it into Q2, with Jessica’s brother Andreas in fifth, and Jessica in ninth at the end of a tight qualifying session, with the top nine all within half a second.

“I like the circuit a lot. There’s a lot of different types of corners, so you have to get everything together. I was struggling a bit yesterday, so I’m happy with qualifying,” said Bäckman to TouringCarTimes.

“Unfortunately, I had a bit of traffic in the last sector in Q2 so I lost two-tenths there, and after that the tyres were gone, and we only had enough tyres for one run in Q2.

“I was initially P8, then they said I was P9 on the radio, and I was more happy about that, as that means I have the front row tomorrow.”

Bäckman therefore starts one place behind Lloyd for this afternoons’ race, and critically from second position behind Julien Briché’s Peugeot tomorrow, and one spot ahead of her former coach.

“It’ll be very weird racing against Dan Lloyd, as I’ve never raced ‘against’ him, and he’s always been faster than me, so it’ll be fun now to race with him and I think it’ll be a good fight,” she said.