Rustad wins home race in Norway

Tommy Rustad managed to win the first race of the Swedish Touring Car Championship race weekend at Våler despite a poor qualifying performance.
“This win feels so good, especially after the problems I had in qualifying,” said Rustad.

Thed Björk held the lead for a good portion of the race, but held little resistance when Rustad caught up with him.

“It was no point to start fighting as we would have lost so much time and the others behind us would have caught up. I am more than pleased with eight points,” said Björk.

Tomas Engström took the final podium position in his Honda Accord, almost three seconds behind Rustad.

The main incident of the race was the one between title contenders Richard Göransson and Robert Dahlgren. The Volvo driver had pole but lost the lead to Göransson early on.

But Dahlgren seemed to be quicker and launched an attack in to the left hander after the start straight. Göransson had none of it and the both went side by side in to the corner, resulting in them both spinning off.

“I am really disappointed, I defended my line and then we just ran out of space,” said Göransson.

Dahlgren was, not surprisingly, of another opinion.

“It was so unnecessary,” said Dahlgren.

Roger Eriksson settled for fourth after putting high pressure on Engström in the end for third. Mattias Andersson took fifth ahead of Robin Rudholm and Johan Stureson.

Pontus Mörth took the final point and is going to start from pole in the second race. The recovering Göransson finished ninth while Dahlgren retired in the pits.