Thed Björk: “I had front-row seat for Yann and Santi’s crazy fight”

Thed Björk inherited victory in the first FIA TCR World Tour race of 2025 in Mexico as team-mate Yann Ehrlacher was handed a post-race penalty for a controversial pass on Lynk & Co Cyan Racing team-mate Santiago Urrutia.

“It was a crazy win and I had a front row seat for Yann and Santi’s crazy fight which lasted more or less the whole race,” said Björk to TouringCarTimes.

The Swede had qualified third, two tenths from pole, but got a slow start, as did several of his competitors due to an incorrect procedure with the start lights.

“I dropped to sixth place as something went wrong with the start, they started the red lights at the same time as the five-second board. So I had no time to build turbo pressure,” said Björk.

The Lynk & Co driver then fought his way up to third place behind Ehrlacher and Urrutia who squabbled for the win.

As Ehrlacher passed Urrutia for the lead, the move opened the door for Björk to snatch second place which then became first after Ehrlacher’s penalty.

“I was able to fight back past the cars ahead of me during the first part of the race and then Santi as well after their fight for the win,” said Björk.

“My car felt great and I’m very happy to win. There is a lot of points at stake this weekend, so I need to focus on continuing my pace and fight up through the field in Race 2 where I start from tenth.”

The reversed grid for Race 2 means that Björk starts from tenth place, right behind Urrutia and Ehrlacher.