The first two weekends of TCR Denmark are already in the books, with a dominant Jan Magnussen. Louise Frost – the only female driver on the grid – was forced to miss the first two events but is back for the upcoming Copenhagen GP.
TCR Denmark kicked off its second season in 2021 with the first race event at Ring Djursland in June. With 20 entries, the Danish series is one of the healthiest in Europe and its big field includes 2020 title winner Kasper H. Jensen (Massive Motorsport), former F1 driver Jan Magnussen (LM Racing) and the only female competitor, Louise Frost (TPR Motorsport).
Frost was announced in a last minute deal with TPR Motorsport to drive a Honda Civic Type R FK7. “I am extremely happy that we got a deal in place with Toni and TPR Motorsport." – she said before the season. "They are super professional, and showed with both victories and pole positions in 2020 that they know their stuff", she added.
For the second year of the championship, the overall event format remains unchanged, with only the qualifying session being split in two sections: at the end of Q1, the ten fastest drivers will advance into Q2, with the combined qualifying results setting the grid for the first 15-minute plus one lap race. Race two will have a reverse grid of the Top-10 from Race 1, while the final race – a 20 minutes plus one lap competition – will have a grid shaped by the sum of the scored points from the first two races.
Unfortunately, Louise Frost couldn't take the start of the races on the first weekend in Djursland after feeling unwell. She had contested the practice and qualifying sessions, where she showed promising speed and looked to be in contention for a top-10 finish.
The weekend was dominated with three victories by Jan Magnussen.
"It was so sad that I couldn't participate in the races." – Frost told us. "It was a hard weekend because I didn't get a lot of practice before the season, so I didn't expect much, but I feel very comfortable in the car, and the practice was a good motivation for the upcoming rounds." – she explained.
"We found a lot of pace on that day with my engineer before Q1, and we had a lot of hope going into Q2, which would be a very good result."
"In the Q1 I made a mistake under braking, and my pit limiter didn't work, so the judges took my two best laps away, which was unlucky. But it is what it is, and I’m really looking forward to the next round, hopefully with better health and some more pace.
Thanks to TPR Motorsport and JAS for bringing me an awesome car."
Louise was unfortunately forced to miss the second racing weekend as well due to health reasons, but now she will be back for the third round of TCR Denmark at Copenhagen, where the Historic GP is about to get underway this weekend. Here's what happened so far on track.
Jan Magnussen has been the dominator of the season so far: at the opening round at Ring Djursland he scored a triple victory and added two more race wins at the second event at Jyllandsringen. Only Michael Carlsen has been able to claim a victory in the remaining race, as Magnussen finished in 6th place after the reversed-grid start.
The Danish former F1-driver is thus leading the championship with a gap of 54 points to Casper Elgaard, second in the point standings.
Louise Frost's journey in TCR Denmark will start this weekend, with three races at the Copenhagen street circuit – with the goal to score points and collect valuable experience in the increasingly competitive Danish championship.