STCC premiere! (updated)

The STCC season started with a thrilling race. The winner of the race wasn’t decided until the very last lap. The fight for the lead stood between Robin Rudholm, BMW, and Thed Björk, Audi. The two drivers opted for completely different pitstop strategy. But at the start of the race the fight for the lead was between Engström and Rudholm.

Engström had pole position and kept it after the start. Rudholm was taking a couple of positions at the start and started to reel in the leading Engström quickly. Their fight escalated coming into the first corner as they came in side-by-side. Engström was on the outside, Rudholm on the inside and they collided.

“It wasn’t that nice, he made a kamikaze move and I felt that you can’t overtake there. But he did that anyway and we collided”, Engström said after the race.

Rudholm dove on the inside, Engström turned in and the two collided which resulted in Engström going off into the gravel trap. But the Honda-driver was able to rejoin the track quickly while Rudholm went in to the lead.

Behind the leading duo the fight was just as hard right down in the field.

Göransson was on a hard charge after starting from seventh position. As drivers started to pit the field was spread out. The strategy seemed to be that FWD cars pitted earlier while almost all BMW-drivers stayed out for very long. Janne “Flash” Nilsson was the penultimate driver to pit with three laps left. But Robin Rudholm mean while stayed out even longer.

He pitted on the pentultimate lap making the final lap very exciting. Thed Björk was first of the drivers that pitted earlier and all eyes were aimed on how close Rudholm were going to exit the pits to Björk.

The WestCoastRacing team seemed to make a slower pitstop compared to Björk and the Audi-team. As Rudholm entered the track he was only a few metres ahead of Björk. Rudholm had cold tyres, he changed the right side tyres, and Björk was able to close right up on him.

The two went side-by-side on the very last lap. As they exited the hairpin on the back side of the track Björk made a run on the out side of Rudholm, the next corner would make that outside to a inside for Björk. But Rudholm had none of it, Björk was forced to put a wheel on the gravel and coming in to the right hand corner they collided.

Rudholm closed the door and took normal race-line. Björk commited to the inside and hit Rudholm who spun out in to the gravel trap on the very last lap. Rudholm was stranded while Björk continued with tyre smoke belching out of his Audi A4.

“He has got him self to blame”, Thed Björk said after the race.

“He pushed me out to the gravel and left me no room. I didn’t want this but he turned in and spun. I’m so happy with this result, I started last season in the same way and I hope this will continue”, a very happy Björk said during the pressconference.

A protest was filed from WestCoastRacing against Thed Björk. About 40 minutes after the finish the STCC stewards decided not to do anything with the protest. The incident is judged as a racing incident. Björk keeps his win.

“Awesome! The team made such a good job. I had quite a calm race. The pitstop went fine and I could focus on the driving after that”, Björk said.

Rudholm on the other hand wasn’t as happy, understandably.

“I’m gutted. I was doing the race of my life and then this happends and I roll backwards in to the gravel trap. There was no chance that Björk was going to make the corner even if I would have steered to the left. But I have done too many races to be disapointed. I know now how to act next time with him,” Rudholm said.

Pole-man Tomas Engström took third position, completing the podium.

“The incident with Rudholm wasn’t nice, but I am so pleased with this result. It’s very important to get all possible points, and third position to start the season is great. I’m looking forward to the next race at Gelleråsen”, Engström said.

A couple of drivers were forced to retire. Tommy Kristoffersson was forced out of the race due to a puncture. He was briefly off track and as he re-entered the track he collided with Huisman. Robert Dahlgren retired in an spectacular way. The Volvo engine gave up spewing large fire flames.

Enjoy a couple of pictures from the race: