The maiden racing event for Volvo’s new 1.6-litre turbo engine gave Robert Dahlgren and Polestar Racing their best result so far since they joined WTCC.
At Brno, Dahlgren and his Volvo C30 Drive car achieved an encouraging sixth position despite losing a couple of places at the start that prevented them to stay in touch with the leading group. In the second race Dahlgren finished ninth after fighting for seventh with a group of other drivers.
“Considering that these were the first races for the engine, we are happy because it ran until the end without technical problems,” commented Polestar Racing principal Christian Dahl, adding: “We had to work on a very tight schedule, with a lot of man hours for having the engine ready for Brno. It was a huge effort, but we respected the timing in delivering the technological product we have designed and developed.”
Besides the results, the Swedish car was impressively performing, running consistently for top places in free practice, qualifying and warm-up and also setting the second best top speed in both races behind Norbert Michelisz’s BMW.
“It is difficult to say how much performing the engine could be. We have to take into account the added weight to the car and we have still to work for improving drivability and further adjusting the chassis, because the weight distribution has changed with four cylinders instead of the normally aspirated engine’s five. We are already focusing to improve in the next event at Porto, although we will need to adapt the full package – chassis, engine, driver and weight – to a track that is totally new to us,” concluded Dahl.