Johan Kristoffersson: “A very good day”

Winner of the first race of the weekend in Tierp, Johan Kristoffersson only needed three races to finally get his first victory with the ex-Marklund Motorsport VW Polo.

Able to set the fastest absolute time three times in a row during the qualifying sessions, the five-time world champion won ahead of his former VW Polo, which has been assigned to Ole-Christian Veiby since the start of the RallyX.

This is enough to comfort the KMS driver, even if he believes that the final could have been better.

“Whether it was my Polo or Ole Christian’s, our starts were good throughout the day so that’s a very good first point. Moreover, we didn’t have any technical problems. So the result is more than positive,” said Johan Kristoffersson.

“Today, our goal was to fine-tune our settings and find some improvements here and there. I think I’m starting to feel more and more comfortable with the car. On the other hand, the track was rough during the final and, in retrospect, I probably should have been more proactive in making some adjustments before the start.”

“Nevertheless, this is only my third race with this car so I still lack experience to know which parameters to adjust. I missed some speed in the final but the track was so rough that we also had to be careful with punctures. In comparison to the rest of the day, I was much more careful in the final”.

 

Threatened by Ole-Christian Veiby, Johan Kristoffersson was nevertheless able to resist the assaults of his teammate.

“In the end, my performance was good enough to win but I have to admit that I thought I had more margin than Ole-Christian. We will test some more things tomorrow to improve the car’s performance when the track gets rough. However, given my lack of knowledge of the car, it would have been too risky to try something before the start of the final race after I managed to get pole position”

“Apart from that, it was a very good day for me. I’m satisfied with my performance. I didn’t make any mistakes. Tierp is not an easy track because there are no sections where you can find tricks to hope to make a difference so you have to perform well on the starting grid.”

From now on, Johan Kristoffersson will focus on the second day of racing with some few objectives in mind.

“As it was already the case in Nysum, the competition is very strong this weekend. Ole-Christian [Veiby] was definitely on the pace at the end of the day while we had very good references with Yury Belevskiy as I won the world championship in 2021 with the same Audi S1. I know perfectly the potential of this car so to win against such a strong opposition is a very good feeling. It’s a very good preparation for the world championship.”

“I am the overall leader and I would love to leave Tierp on Sunday night in the same position. Even if I won’t be able to be in Kouvola for the next stage of the season, we’ll see if we’ll be able to compete in the last races of the championship”.