Thed Björk wins Gothenburg street race

Thed Björk has won the fifth round of the Swedish Touring Car Championship at Gothenburg. The Honda driver started the race from second on the grid, but had to fight hard to take over the lead. Thomas Schie took second position on the podium with his privateer Chevrolet. Schie had a tough race, even dropping back a few places, but he was very quick towards the end of the race, even almost catching Björk in the last laps.

The race started off with a clash, as was expected. In the first couple of corners Janne “Flash” Nillson was sandwiched between Eriksson and Engström. Engström was able to continue, but Eriksson and Flash were left stranded. After some help from the marshalls Flash was able to continue, Eriksson however had to retire. The incident did bring out the safety car however.

After the safety car had gone it was Robert Dahlgren, who started from pole, who was in the lead. He was followed by Björk, Stureson and Roseblad. Göransson soon managed to work his way up from sixth to fourth. But when his car started to leak oil onto the exhaust system, smoke was coming from the rear off the car. The race director forced him to have it checked during his mandatory pitstop, loosing him a lap to the front running men.

Carl Rosenblad and Johan Stureson didn’t manage to make the most out of their good starting positions. The pair colided in the first corner, dropping Rosenblad a couple of places back. Stureson had to retire a few laps later with mechical problems.

After the pitstops Dahlgren lost his first place to Björk, and had trouble with his second set of tires. Soon he was overtaken by Schie and Ekblom. When Tomas Engström tried to follow Ekblom through, his car came up on two wheels and hit Dahlgren hard. Soon after that Dahlgren had to park his car in the pits with suspension damage.