Mikael Karlsson won the Diamond Best Trophy class on his return to TCR Europe, taking over the second of ALM Motorsport’s Honda Civic Type R FL5 TCRs at the Hockenheimring, and says he really enjoyed racing the car in what was a very up-and-down race for the Swedish driver.

Getting into the top ten early on before an incident which dropped the reigning Scandinavian champion back down to 16th, he recovered to finish 11th overall at the finish, and pick up the Diamond class trophy victory.

“The start was chaotic, I gained a lot and then lost a lot,” said Karlsson.

“I got fairly high up but then at the hairpin the car in front of me wasn’t braking so late and I had to go on the grass to recover the car, and I dropped to the back. The pace in the car was really good, the guys did a really good job, and it’s really nice to be in a TCR car. I’ve never driven a TCR car with a good top speed, so it was really fun. Qualifying we just had a small issue, else we could have been much higher up, but it’s all fun, and it’s good to be back in a TCR car.”