At the recent unofficial “warm-up” for the upcoming 12th scale European Championships, should anyone have been surprised that former (and we have to say, 7-time!) Champion Alex Hagberg was on hand to get used to the carpet and the size of track that is typical of UK 12th scale racing.
EFRA Media Partner CTRL Sport caught up with Alex in our exclusive Facebook Live video to check in and find out his thoughts on this weekend’s upcoming Euros in Eastbourne, UK!
EFRA: Alex, how are you doing?
Alex: Great, thank you. How are you?
EFRA: Amazing. It’s great to have you in the UK already, taking it quite seriously.
Alex: It’s good to be back putting in as much effort as I can for this race. So yeah, that’s why I’m here.
EFRA: So you here to try out the carpet, the climate, the general vibes and see if you can get the car working.
Alex: Yeah, exactly. I need to be under dietary plan like British food and British air, all these sort of things. Apart from racing on the same type of carpet.
EFRA: Of course, of course. You’ve been to the Eastbourne Club before, I take it? No you haven’t. Okay. Well it looks, sounds like it’s going to be an amazing event. Cool to be racing a different venue for once.
Alex: Yeah, I’m looking forward to racing a Euros in the UK again. The last time was 2010, I think.
EFRA: Hinckley, yeah.
Alex: Quite a while ago about I expect the BRCA to put on a great event. Absolutely.
EFRA: Absolutely. And then you’re working on your car at the moment, you’re running two cars at the moment? You’ve got a bit of a development car in the works?
Alex: Yeah. We also have a prototype car with a bit different weight distribution which will be using at the Euros perhaps, depending on how it goes. And yeah, we have two different platforms going on right now.
EFRA: Okay. So you’re running the new car and that I guess, will be available towards the beginning of the indoor season. It might be the European championship winning car maybe.
Alex: Perhaps, you never know. But we hope they will have a good result at the Euros with either car.
EFRA: You how do you approach this, given how the last event went down? What’s your mindset going into? It is slightly different from a year ago.
Alex: Yeah, yeah. Last year I was on my home track basically, so I know that this year I’m going to have to work harder than ever to try and retain the title and I’m excited about trying to do that.
EFRA: Michal is not here. I asked him and he didn’t even know this event was on, but it is the unofficial warmup and he’s not here getting the advantage of the track.
Alex: I assume he’s getting testing done somewhere else at some point, so he’ll he’ll show up prepared. I’m sure.
EFRA: What is your mindset like? Obviously, you run for seven years and then this happens. How important is it to you now to take it back? Is it even more important or is it kind of the pressure’s off? In a sense.
Alex: Yeah, I feel more motivated than ever, I think, to try and win the title because I think the competition is actually higher than it’s ever been. Yeah, with Michal and Mark Reinhardt and these kind of guys. So I think it’s going to be harder than ever. But if I win, it will be more satisfying than ever.
EFRA: Absolutely. It’d be fun.
James Stewart, also interviewing for EFRA:
It will. Absolutely. And Alex, is Bruno going to be racing? I know he raced at the Snowbird and possibly he’s entered into the Worlds. So I mean what’s that feel like, he’s obviously your long term teammate in with touring cars, what’s it like having him running 12th scale as well?
Alex: Yeah, Bruno will be racing at the Worlds. He will not be showing up for the Euros. It’s been great to have him run a little 12th scale because the bigger the team of top drivers the better for the development of the set up and so on. So it’s been good to see him run 12th scale and it’s my favorite class as well. So yeah, it’s been exciting.
EFRA: Absolutely. Yeah, no Bruno. Bruno’s got quite a unique driving style, I think. And so to see how that adapts to 12th scale, I can’t wait to see that when we see him at the Worlds later in the year. Yeah absolutely fantastic. Well thank you very much Alex. Best of luck for Eastbourne. Thank you.
