The next young gun

Swede Anton Marklund set for TouringCar business.

Anton Marklund, an 18-year-old from Skellefteå in the north of Sweden, is the next teenager to focus on first a national but eventually an international Rallycross career. Anton is the son of Bergteamet’s Jan Marklund, the squad responsible for the Volvo programmes of Swede Karl-Gunnar Lindkvist (S40 I) and later Norwegian Ludvig Hunsbedt (S40 II). On May 10 the team has been for its first test drives at the Strängnäs Motorstadion, where they met British engine wizard Julian Godfrey who is doing the 2 litre normally aspirated motor for them.

“All is absolutely new to me and so much different from the old Opel Ascona B type I drove before,” claimed Marklund at Strängnäs. Godfrey, who worked for the Bergteamet already during their three years with Hunsbedt, was in Sweden to check the work of the engine on his computer and to give the mechanics Magnus & Magnus [Ågren and Jonsson] the necessary instructions for all adjustments. “Here in Sweden Anton is my only customer, but over Easter, during the first ERC round at Lydden, there were no less than 16 competitors who are using my engines,” said the proud Englishman.

The focus of Marklund Jr. is set on a full 2012 ERC season. “Therefore 2011 will be a learning year for me. The full Swedish championship’s TouringCar programme is on my calendar and at least the European rounds at Höljes and Hell in Norway. But maybe we get a chance to do the rounds of Belgium and Holland also,” hopes the youngster whose daily work is to do exploration drillings in the mining industry.

The apprenticeship seasons in the TouringCar category should lead the youngster eventually into the Supercar class. “Anton is one of the most promising talents we have and I strongly believe in his future. Currently we’ve lost some of the usual Swedish strength in international Rallycross. Therefore, it is important that we get young drivers into the TouringCars to make way for them to step up into the Supercar league,” stated Rallycross head-coach Sune Sandberg from the Swedish ASN ‘Svenska Bilsportförbundet’, who was also at Strängnäs to be an eye-witness of Anton Marklund’s test drives.

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