Johan Kristoffersson cruises to victory in Knutstorp Race 1

Johan Kristoffersson took an easy victory in the first race at Knutstorp for SEAT Team Dealer PWR Racing and secured third place in the drivers’ championship, while the fight for the title between Richard Göransson and Robert Dahlgren will be decided in Race 2 as the two Polestar Cyan Volvo drivers completed the podium.

Kristoffersson started from pole position and led the way ahead of Göransson’s Volvo S60, while Dahlgren was trying to recover from a problematic qualifying session from eighth on the grid, which was already seventh at the start of the race when Philip Morin’s SEAT failed to make it out of the pits due to a mechanical problem.

Linus Ohlsson ran wide as the field bunched up at the first corner in his Flash Engineering-run Nissan, with Dahlgren now up to fifth position by the end of the first lap.

The championship contender then passed Daniel Haglöf’s SEAT on lap two, before overtaking Bjorn Wirdheim’s Saab two laps later to grab third, but by now Kristoffersson and Göransson had built a comfortable margin, with Dahlgren unable to make any further progress.

The race was a general procession from this point, with Wirdheim finishing fourth ahead of Haglöf, with Carl Philip Bernadotte’s Volvo completing the top six.

Mattias Andersson finished seventh in his Dacia SE ahead of Linus Ohlsson, the last classified finisher after Reuben Kressner retired his Flash Saab and after the non-start of Morin’s SEAT.

Göransson now leads the drivers’ standings on 295 points, 13 ahead of Dahlgren with just 25 points available in the final race of the season this afternoon at 13:40 CET.

Andersson will start from pole position for the reversed grid race, with Göransson starting ahead of Dahlgren on the road in sixth, with Dahlgren ninth.