Björn Wirdheim claims maiden STCC victory in second Karlskoga race

Björn Wirdheim claimed his maiden Scandinavian Touring Car Championship victory in the second race at Karlskoga, as well as Flash Engineering’s first win since their return to the championship.

The Saab driver made a strong start from fifth position on the reversed grid and took advantage of the first-lap commotion to claim the lead early on.

As he had passed pole sitter Rasmus Mårthen, there was no stopping the former Jaguar F1 test driver to win by over 16 seconds.

There was plenty of action behind as per usual in the second reversed grid race with Emma Kimiläinen once again finding her self in the thick of the action and causing several incidents.

Her final incident came when she hit Prince Carl Philip Bernadotte who had spun and stopped on track, retiring on lap five.

Johan Kristoffersson, who retired from the first race due to a wheel coming off, had yet another dreadful race. The SEAT driver fought his way to second place but spun due to a tyre separation not far from the end of the race, dropping to eighth position.

This left Mårthen in second place, defending from Daniel Haglöf and Reuben Kressner. The three were close, but Haglöf made a mistake on the penultimate lap that saw Mårthen finishing second and Haglöf third.

Kressner crossed the line in fourth position ahead of a charging Robert Dahlgren. The Polestar Cyan Racing driver served a drive through penalty as the team had not mounted his tyres on the grid in time. Dahlgren dropped to last position but fought his way up to fifth position, setting the fastest lap of the race.

Things were even worse for team mate Richard Göransson who retired on the first lap due to an electrical fault.

The retirement tighten things even further in the drivers’ championship, with Dahlgren being just eleven point behind team-mate Göransson despite being 47 points behind ahead of the race weekend.

STCC continues with the penultimate round of the championship at Solvalla on September 3rd.