Andreas Bäckman happy despite “not perfect” lap in Oschersleben qualifying

Andreas Bäckman has said he’s happy with his first TCR Europe series pole position at Oschersleben, after setting two times of 1:30.0 in the two sessions, more than three-tenths clear of anyone else, but said even his best time he’d made a mistake.

Bäckman was nearly half a second faster than any other Hyundai, despite carrying 60kg of compensation weight this weekend, which has left most of his competitors flummoxed by his performance.

“I’m very happy. The car felt really good yesterday as well, and by the end of the Q1 I was starting to feel really confident in the car,” said Bäckman to TouringCarTimes.

“On my last lap I made a mistake, so it was not perfect either, so I’m very happy with the pole and the lap record for sure. We have a really good car today and I’m really thankful to the team.”

Bäckman will start just ahead of his team-mate and coach from last year, Dan Lloyd, with whom Bäckman worked with at WestCoast Racing, with the fast Audi RS 3 LMS of Santiago Urrutia starting from third on the grid.

“I haven’t really thought about the race yet, but I know it’s going to be tough. We know we have good race pace, and I know I’m quite good with tyres, and it’s a circuit which is quite twist and tyres can go off quite a bit,” he said.

“I’m just going to try to do my best in the race and hopefully we can finish on the podium.”