Richard Göransson is champion!

Richard Göransson crossed the line today at Mantorp as winner of STCC 2005. It was a calm trip in the last race of the season for Göransson. On the contrary to the first qualifying races the first corner went fine. All cars went through without accidents. Göransson, Björk, Stureson, Rustad was the order after the first lap.

And the remaining part of the race was quiet if you compare it to the qualifying races. Göransson pulled away in the lead and Björk held second place. Rustad and Sandström had a fight for fourth place. The Norwegian was unable to respond to Sandström´s attac and dropped down to fifth place.

The fight for seventh place lasted through the whole race though. Mattias Andersson and Daniel Haglöf swapped positions several times per lap. The fight between them was clean, both left room for each other and there was no foul play. Andersson eventually went victorious from the fight between the two.

Earlier championship contenders Engström and Ekblom started way back and had many places to gain. Sadly for Ekblom his unluck continued. The engine problems from the practice sessions was back during the race and he had to pit.

Engström on the other hand fought his way through the field. From last position on the grid the Honda-man finally managed to get sixth position.

While all eyes were aimed to Göransson in the lead, secondplaced Björk suddenly got all attention. Björk had grip problems and braked too late coming in to the F1-hairpin. Stureson who was third could, a bit surprised, nip past up in to second place.

Göransson was the first to cross the finish line and secured his second title in a row. The exuberant Göransson hung out of the car and waived to the audience during his lap of honor.

“It´s fantastic, I don´t have words to describe the feeling, said Göransson afterwards. I´ve got a lump in my throat. To win two years in a row… I don´t get how big this is yet.”

Göransson has placed in all races this year, something he considers is one of hte keys to this years victory.

“I´ve fought harder this year but I´ve also tried to be more tactical and I´ve been more careful.”

Thed Björk, who was the only driver except Göransson with a mathematical shot at the title, was dissapointed after the race. He had hoped to give Göransson a better fight over the victory.

“I´m a bit dissapointed. I had the wrong setup on the car. I tried to up the tempo but I lost grip instead. I´ll probably feel better later on”, said Björk.

Johan Stureson secured the third place in the championship by taking his Peugeot 407 to the final place on the podium in the race.

“The car was a lot better than in Norway and we seemed to have solved our problems. Our goal before this championship was to get into the top three and it feels great to have achieved that”, said the happy southerner.

Before the final race Edward Sandström had his sight set on the podium place that befell to Stureson, but the problems he had in the qualifying was still there in the final.

“The car understeered and I lacked the speed, said Edward. We should have started on new front tyres, that would have given us a better balance.”

This was the second time Edward ended up fourth in the standings and a better position would have been welcome, but with the last two miserable years spent in Formula Renault V6, Edward was quite pleased to be competitive again.

“Still, I beat everyone except three guys, said Edward. We had a strong start of the season but then we lost it mentally when we couldn´t keep up with the others in Karlskoga.”