NIKA Racing
| Founded | 2006 |
|---|---|
| Team principal(s) | Nicklas Karlsson Eric Lindgren |
| Current series | WTCC |
| Former series |
STCC STCC (Sweden) |
| Noted drivers | 17. Michel Nykjær |
| Teams' Championships |
2012 STCC |
| Drivers' Championships |
2011 STCC (Rydell) |
NIKA racing (short for Nicklas Karlsson Racing) is a Swedish racing team, founded by former racing driver Nicklas Karlsson along with Eric Lindgren which currently competes in the World Touring Car Championship. Before that they competed in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship where they won the teams' championship title in 2011.
Karlsson founded the team in 2006 and to run a Chevrolet Lacetti for himself under the Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden banner in Swedish Touring Car Championship in 2007, but started at two races only during the season.
He stepped aside for 2008 to become team manager and the team ran Norwegian Thomas Schie in their car. Schie remained for the most part among the top ten and scored a best result second place in Gothenburg. He finished seventh in the drivers' championship while the team finished fifth in the teams' championship.
Schie continued for the team during the 2009 season, but was forced to leave after six races. What actually was the reason for this is not entirely clear. Schie said that the team was not enough professionally, while Nicklas Karlsson said that was because Schie could not afford to continue. The seat was taken over by Pontus Mörth, who completed the season. He often took a few points in the races, but never came up on the podium. Mörth finished eleven in total, while Schie was fourteenth. In the team championship Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden finished fifth.
In 2010 Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden joined the World Touring Car Championship for the 2010 FIA WTCC Race of Italy, running a Chevrolet Cruze LT for TC 2000 Championship driver Leonel Pernía who became the first Argentine to race in the WTCC. The team were not eligible for the Yokohama Team's Trophy as the regulations exclude any teams with the name of a car manufacturer from inclusion in the trophy. Pernía finished eighteenth in race one after an excursion through the gravel trap at the Parabolica but he scored a single point in race two when he finished tenth.
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