After a tricky start to the FIA World Touring Car Cup season, Thed Björk got his day in the sun (quite literally) this afternoon, as the 2017 World Champion put on a brilliant display of pace in qualifying at Motorland Aragon.
In the blazing Summer heat, the Swede finally got his chance to shine above the rest of Cyan Racing’s drivers, who so far this season have enjoyed much better luck.
As a result, Björk was in a buoyant mood after qualifying, despite narrowly missing out on pole position to Audi’s Frédéric Vervisch.
“I feel really good if you want to know!” he beamed. “Because as Fred [Vervisch] said, I was also struggling for the first two weekends of this championship and I’m back on top and it feels so good.
“I can’t do anything else. I had this momentum, it started a little bit in Estoril, then I was struggling in qualifying, but now it continues.
“Also as Fred said, it feels so good as a driver when you know what you can do and you just go out in the car and everything feels good. Put the lap in, put the next lap in.”
However, there were times during the session when Björk feared that fate might turn against him once more. As such, he felt overjoyed at being able to overcome the set-backs he faced this time out.
“Because of the red flag [in Q1] I started the last of everybody,” he explained. “So I didn’t get the first lap.
“And then the pressure rises, the tension in the car that you need to perform on the next lap.
“It’s a fantastic feeling when you do challenge yourself and put it where you want it. My lap, it felt so good.”
And as for the race tomorrow? Björk’s spirits remain high about that too:
“[I feel] Fantastic. I think they [Vervisch & Magnus] are going to be so worried about me…” he joked.
“Coming here when it’s so warm, you have to find the perfect set-up or a really good one to be able to do this.
“I don’t remember if it’s fifteen or eighteen laps tomorrow, you really have to have a car that can perform on all the laps. Let’s see what kind of fight it will be.”
Sunday’s WTCR action gets underway with the reversed-grid morning race at 11:15 local time (10:15 BST).