New video and data released from STCC AB

The Swedish Touring Car Championship organization has released a new video of the incident and released data regarding Robert Dahlgren and Thed Björk’s cars.
“We have analyzed the data from the involved cars and the picture of it all has not changed,” said Johnny Haraldsson, Race Director of STCC.

The STCC organization also points out in their release that the possibility of team orders was not taken in to consideration when issuing the penalty for Dahlgren.

“We do not take anything in to consideration other than the evidence we have on the spot. That is witness information, TV-images and eventual reports from the marshals around the track,” said Haraldsson.

Volvo has in their releases stated that they found the penalty unfair and that Björk was the one to blame for the incident. (read more here and here)

But Haraldsson of STCC AB explains their view of the matter.

“We are working with sport and we have full understanding that the competitors does not sympathize with the decisions, but that is a world we live in and with.

Wrong decisions can of course be taken in the heat of the battle. But we do always try to gather as much information for a decision as possible to make a correct judgement. For the start incident (that Tommy Rustad was penalized for) we gathered information from seven different camera angles,” said Haraldsson.

The incident between Dahlgren and Björk has been widely debated during the last couple of days. STCC AB has released the following data regarding the incident, taken from the logging system from the two cars:

— At the attempt to pass, Dahlgren brakes 14 meters later compared to the previous lap.
— Thed Björk braked within the same meter compared to the previous lap.
— At point of impact, Björk is doing 84 km/h and Dahlgren 92 km/h.
— On the lap of the incident, the difference between Björk and Dahlgren is 0.519 seconds which equals to a distance of 21 meters at the speed of 150 km/h.
— At the braking point the cars reach approximately 200 km/h and at that point the same time difference equals to approximately 27 meters, presupposed that the cars have accelerated equally fast to the corner.
— Dahlgren is on the lap before the attempt to pass 0.457 seconds behind Björk.
— The lap before that lap, the distance is 0.607 seconds and the lap before that the distance is 0.329 seconds.

The video that has been released by the STCC organization today was used during the investigation and Race Director Haraldsson comments the incident.

“The issue is completely clear regarding the incident between Dahlgren and Björk,” said Haraldsson.

The release further states that no protests have been filed against the decisions, meaning that there is no chance to take it to a higher authority.