“I’ve never seen anybody put so much work in”

The two years that I spent with Fredrik were very good, certainly for me. His passion and determination for rallying, I’ve never seen anything like it in any driver. His enthusiasm really rubbed off on me. Everybody knows he’s a very quick driver but what impressed me was his ability to be quick on all surfaces. Whether that was going to a Welsh forest, Kielder or to bumpy roads in Ireland or the Isle of Man he was just quick on every single surface and I always gave him credit for that as he’d never been to these places before. To go straight onto that pace from just a two-pass recce really showed his ability and his potential.

I’ve never seen anybody put so much work and development into car set-up either. When we went testing we had a good relationship where we’d share information between each other, and it got to the stage where I would just let Fredrik work away. He’d be pulling diffs, dampers, and springs off the car and changing various things; he just wanted to keep going until the car was perfect. And then fortunately enough for me at the end of the test he’d be like ‘right David try this’. I would try it and be like ‘yep that’ll do me’. It allowed me to sit back, relax and drink coffee in between my runs!

I always felt with Fredrik if he was to succeed and make the pinnacle of the sport, there’s not one person who could say he didn’t deserve that. He certainly has the talent to go all the way and was so determined from chasing sponsorship to pre-event preparation and his determination on events.

But there probably comes a time in every driver’s life where you’ve got to think properties, families, business and not just rallying because Fredrik was 100% rallying. He’s a very good friend of mine and I’ve got a lot of time for Fredrik and his family. I wish him all the best.