TCR World and life

16 INTERVIEW Siblings inarms ANDREAS AND JESSICA BÄCKMAN HAVE HIGH HOPES FOR THE SEASON Scandinavian siblings Andreas and Jessica Bäckman are all set to return for the 2020 TCR racing season, their third year of competition in TCR Touring Cars. After making their tin top debut in 2018, the young Swedes have gone from strength-to-strength. Last year, they were regular hired guns for Hyundai’s Customer Racing Junior Driver programme, racing in Europe, Scandinavia, Germany, as well as the inaugural FIA Motorsport Games. After first trying their hand racing on dirt in the RX2 Rallycross Series in 2017, the two switched back to circuit racing for 2018, embarking on a daring dual-programme in both TCR Scandinavia and UK championships with WestCoast Racing. Andreas explained: “We tried one year in rallycross, but after that it made sense to go with Touring Cars, as we had a strong series in Sweden. It was also better for us than to go into Formula cars, as you have to go international and the budgets are much higher. So Touring Car was a good starting point for us, as we could race in Sweden and the UK in our first year, and get a lot of track time from two different series.” “ You can also use the same car wherever you go,” added Jessica. “You can’t do that in Formula cars. So right now we’re racing in Europe, and it’s now only one step to get to the top level where you want to be, and it’ll still be the same car.” The two drivers will again race with the Target Competition team, the small squad from South Tyrol in northern Italy, which won last year’s TCR Europe series title with Josh Files, and the Swedish drivers say the switch to Hyundai and Target Competition was a key part of their leap forwards last year. “We did our first year in the Volkswagen, and at the end of the year we got in contact with Hyundai as we wanted to do a year in Europe, and we got in touch with Target, as they were one of the teams running the Hyundai cars there, ” said Andreas. “The team looked strong from the year before, so we went to race for them and it worked out for sure. It’s a family team, so it’s a bit different compared to other teams, but it works well.”