Pontus Tidemand, set to make his full-time rallycross return this season with Hedströms Motorsport, says last weekend’s All Star Magic Weekend was “good practice for the European RX series.”
Former WRC2 champion Tidemand made his first appearence in a Volkswagen Polo Supercar in the Swedish event and was adamant that despite some problems throughout the four days, overall he was happy with his performance.
The opening day of action saw Tidemand set a string of quick qualifying times in the RallyX Nordic series, but after a semi-final crash, the Polo was too badly damaged to compete competitively in the final and as a result he ended up sixth and last in the final.
Speaking about round one, Tidemand said: “The situation isn’t optimal in a final when your car is that damaged I also picked up a puncture and that didn’t make it any easier to fight for a good result. I had to settle for a sixth place in the final, but I’m still happy that I actually made it all the way to the final in my very first race for the team.”
The problems continued for Tidemand on Saturday morning where he simply couldn’t match the pace of rivals in the class including double FIA World Rallycross champion Johan Kristofferson and didn’t make it any further than the semi-finals as a result.
He continued: “With bad luck, you never know when it happens and this time we didn’t have the technique on our side. But the team did such a great job to fix the issues and we recharged to take the chance on the last day. “We had problems again in the semi and that might have costed us a spot in the final”
“The Hedströms Motorsport team have been working amazingly hard both before and during the event. We had a few great tests and every detail was in its place so I actually don’t think we could have done anything differently. This just wasn’t our weekend. But the day started in a good way today and thanks to that we know that we are fast when things are working properly, which is good practice for the Euro RX. We are already looking for revenge so we just need to start working towards that.” Tidemand added.
The opening round of the Euro RX series is set to take place at Höljes in August.
