SG:  Mantorp Park is your home territory, where the attention from fans, friends, family and sponsors has been far more intense than at the other races. Do you expect the same level of attention this year?

MK:  We had a little less activity last year but this year we’re back to the level we had 2 years ago, with a lot of guests and attention.

SG:  In earlier years there has been a relatively large group of people from your home village, Värna. Are they expected this year as well?

MK:  I don’t know if there will be as many as there were a couple of years ago when we had a special invitation to all the people in Värna. But there will for sure be a lot of people from my home village coming.



SG: It's a well known fact that famous drivers attract extraordinary attention and stress at their home events. This will of course distract them from focusing on their driving and sometimes cause them to make silly mistakes. How do you keep focused on your driving with so much hype going on around you?

MK: It's only fun with all the attention during this event. I've been doing this for so many years that I've got used to it. Personally I'm fully focused on the racing when it's time for the qualification and elimination runs. When the racing is over for the day, and for some periods in between the runs, I spend time with sponsors, family, friends and fans and enjoy that, but when I need to focus on driving I'm all into that. I've got a large crew working with hospitality hosting my guests, who understand that I need to be focused on racing.



SG: It's not only the driver having to deal with extra attention, the crew will be exposed to the same. Do you take any extra precautions to protect them so they can keep focused?

MK: The team enjoys the attention and thinks it's fun talking to people. We usually have some extra mechanics to make sure the workload will not be too large.

SG: With more guests and sponsor events at Mantorp, how many extra personnel does it take to complete this event?

MK: We have about 15 – 20 more people on our staff for this event. A few of them are mechanics, but most of them are involved in the hospitality part of the team. We are expecting about 400 – 500 sponsor guests coming during the weekend. For that reason we have a large pit area with an extra trailer for the hospitality and catering.

SG: With some good and bad results in the past at Mantorp, how much more does defeat or victory mean to you and the team here?

MK: This is the by far most important race for me and the team, since it's our home event. About 90% of our sponsors are Swedish and our friends will be watching us, so caring for them and delivering a good result is extra important for us at Mantorp.



SG: Considering the more mechanical side of racing, do you feel confident with your racecar and the set-up combinations this year?

MK: We are not fully satisfied yet. The season started well with us being the fastest car on track early in qualifying at the first race in England, before we had problems with the car eating blower belts; we still had a good setup for England. In Finland the conditions were different, with hotter weather and less traction; we had to back down on everything and didn't make it all right. For some strange reason we seem to have struggled with the 3 first races of the year in previous years, coming back strongly at the 4th race in Hockenheim. But this year we hope to get it right one race earlier by running well at Mantorp.



SG: Mantorp Park has been partly resurfaced earlier this year. How do you expect that to affect the level of performance for you and the other Top Fuel teams?

MK: Very hard to say what it will be like. The new smoother surface should have eliminated the bumps up to half-track and there will now be 2 surfaces in each lane instead of 3 in the right lane and 2 in the left, as previously, with the track partly blasted from trackbite for the circle track racing at other times of the year. On the downside, I'm worried about the freshly asphalted surface. How will it hold up and will it start bleeding asphalt if it gets hot? It is, however, the same for all contestants and I shall keep a positive approach to the racing.

SG: Thanks for your time!

MK: Thank you!