Tommy Rustad secures first pole of 2011

Volvo driver Tommy Rustad claimed the first pole position of the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship 2011. The Norwegian claimed pole in a close qualifying session with the top three within just 0.069 seconds.

Richard Göransson squeezed in among the two Volvo drivers Rustad and James Thompson. The reigning champion beat Thompson by just two thousands of a second.

The sole Danish entry of the field, Jason Watt, made a strong first impression of the season by claiming fourth on the grid ahead of Chevrolet man Rickard Rydell.

Second best SEAT driver was Roger Eriksson, the last man to be within two tenths of a second from the pole position time. Mattias Andersson claimed seventh on the grid ahead of a struggling Colin Turkington.

The Flash Engineering driver was fifth in Q1, but dropped nearly 1.5 seconds for Q2 and said that the grip level dropped dramatically for him in the second session.

BMW men Johan Stureson and Jan “Flash” Nilsson rounded off top ten.