Thed Björk admits that he was ‘a little surprised’ to have claimed pole position for the opening FIA World Touring Car Cup race at Zandvoort, after the difficult weekend experienced by Lynk & Co just one week ago in Slovakia.
Björk initially led a Cyan Racing 1-2-3-4 in the first qualifying session in The Netherlands, as the Lynk & Co cars dominated the session by more than seven tenths of a second compared to the next-best manufacturer, although fourth-placed Ehrlacher was later given a grid penalty.
Prior to the event the Chinese cars had been given a 2.5% power increase, combined with a weight increase, in changes to the TCR Balance of Performance [BoP], but the Swede admits he was still surprised to have been on pole.
“It’s a great result for us but I am actually a little surprised we are here,” said Björk. “After the problems of one week ago to bounce back is crazy actually and it feels good.
“The car felt so amazingly good and usually when it does that and I’m driving it around the world I’m pretty much on top.
“I got a lot of DHL Pole Positions last year and every time you come to a new car in a new year I want to do it again.”
Björk praised the Cyan Racing team for turning around their fortunes after last weekend, when the team failed to score a single top ten finish at the Slovakiaring.
“Last weekend we were off, completely off. What is this? What is going to happen? But the team just focused on what we did in testing during the winter, focused on that and kept it there.
“This is a different track compared to Slovakia. It’s not so high speed, you saw what happens. You have to get it right in the set-up and you have to have a car that works all around the world and that’s why you saw we were up and down.
“But my lap was fantastic, I almost I felt like I could have had a little bit more, although Yvan [Muller] and Andy [Priaulx] are really fast and they will not make it easy for me.”