Adam Westlund will return to the FIA European Rally Championship this weekend in the ERC3 Junior class, 11 months after he fractured his back and the neck in a crash at a local rally in Sweden.
19-year-old Westlund made his ERC3 Junior debut at the PZM 76th Rally Poland last season, where he scored a podium on his first outting in the series but 48 days after his successful debut , he was involved in a massive crash at the Kolsvarundan rally, which forced him to have a break from driving until now.
“I was out for five months and one day when I drove a car again, now I’m fully recovered with no pain,” explained a fully recovered Westlund and continued to talk about the back story of his crash;
“I don’t remember anything about the crash so that was not a problem. But [since the accident] when the road goes really, really fast you think one more time before you go into a corner. But with the time it goes away.”
He will be making his first appearance at Rally di Roma Capitale this weekend, which he looks forward to even if he knows it will be a new challenge for him; “It’s a challenge but it will be good fun,” Westlund enthused – the young Swede hasn’t done any rally on tarmac for almost the last two years.
“It’s almost two years since I drove on Tarmac so it’s going to take some time to come back to the right rhythm. On this rally it’s all about the experience and to learn as much as possible, to get as much speed as possible. We can’t expect a better result. Some parts will be good, some parts will need some more energy. But it will be a really good rally to learn a lot because it has a lot of different things on it.”
Westlund also confirmed that the rally will not be the only one he will be contesting this year in the ERC and has acquired co-driver David Arhusiander for his campaign.
