Volvo will return to the World Touring Car Championship at the next round in Shanghai with Thed Bjork behind the wheel of the Volvo C30 it used in 2011.
Volvo and Polestar Racing previously entered the single C30 1.6T for the whole 2011 season for Robert Dahlgren as an evaluation for a proper programme that failed to materialise.
Bjork will make his WTCC debut having secured this year’s Scandinavian Touring Car Championship title driving an S60 model for Volvo Polestar.
“We are entering this race to check the pulse of WTCC, as well as celebrating Thed Bjork’s amazing performance in the STCC this year,” said Alexander Murdzevski Schedvin, Volvo Cars’ Motorsport Commercial Director.
“We moved our focus to the Volvo S60 model as our primary car for motorsport in 2012, the model that we are currently racing in Sweden and USA and that we will race in the Australian V8 Supercars next year. While our S60 model does not match WTCC well today, we still think WTCC represents possibly the best value for money and one-fits-all global motorsport solution if you want to race with a smaller c-segment car. Consequently, we are keen on staying closely informed and this is precisely our objective with Shanghai, not outright performance and results.”
32-year-old Bjork added: “We know that we have got a tough race weekend ahead of us as we never before have raced at the circuit. We keep our ambitions realistic, to make it to the top ten would be a great result, but our main mission is to gather data and information. Nonetheless, I am going to give my very best and there is no doubt that we have two exciting races ahead of us.”