When I accepted the seat for Linköping back in May, I genuinely thought it would be a one-off.
A chance to drive a race car again, spend a weekend with good people, and see whether I still enjoyed racing as much as I remembered. I hadn’t been on a grid in a long time, and I went into that weekend with no real expectations, just curiosity about whether the feeling would still be there once the visor came down. Winning the race certainly wasn’t guaranteed and neither was another opportunity afterwards.
Three days later, we won overall.
I’ll admit it didn’t fully sink in until well after the weekend was over. You spend the race itself just trying to execute, hit your marks, manage the tires, stay out of trouble and it’s only afterwards, sitting with the result, that it starts to feel like something worth talking about.
This morning, a little over a month later, I got another call from Gula Garaget Racing. One of the drivers was unavailable for Mantorp Park this Sunday, and there was a seat open if I wanted it. I didn’t need long to think about my answer.
A month ago I wasn’t planning to race at all. Now I’m preparing for my second race of the season.
Motorsport has always been a little strange like that. You can spend years planning a career and nothing happens. Then suddenly a single decision creates momentum, and things start moving very quickly. One phone call leads to a podium, and a podium leads to another phone call. It’s rarely the plan that gets you there, it’s being ready when the door opens.
What excites me most about Mantorp isn’t that we’re leading the championship after the win in Linköping. It’s that this will be the first time I’m driving the car on a circuit I actually know. Linköping was largely new to me. I spent most of that weekend learning the track at the same time as learning the car. Mantorp is different. I know the layout, I know where the time is made and lost, and I know what the car likely needs to be quick there. That should let me focus more on the racing itself, rather than the learning.
The car is the same. The team is the same: Claes, Emil and Peter are all back, and that continuity matters more than people might think. There’s a real comfort in walking into the paddock already knowing how everyone works, how the car is set up, and what’s expected of me. The only real difference this time is that I know a little bit more about what I’m getting myself into.
At the same time, motorsport has a way of punishing anyone who starts believing results are guaranteed. We had a fantastic weekend in Linköping, but that race is already over. Nobody gets extra points for what happened a month ago, and a championship lead means nothing if it isn’t backed up. If anything, leading raises the stakes, there’s now something concrete to defend, rather than just a result to chase.
What happens on Sunday, I have no idea. New circuit knowledge helps, but it doesn’t win races by itself. The competition will have studied Linköping just as closely as I have, and Mantorp will test different things, different corners, different demands on the car, possibly different conditions altogether.
What I do know is that when I announced my return to racing earlier this year, I didn’t expect to be sitting here writing about race number two, let alone doing it as championship leader.
And honestly, I’m quite happy about that.
Race two of the season takes place this Sunday at Mantorp Park, with the team currently leading the championship following its overall victory in Linköping.