Photo: Mediaempire.se

Watt wins STCC premiere in last lap drama

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Jason Watt won the first Scandinavian Touring Car Championship race of the year as previous race leader Richard Göransson retired with just two laps left.
“This is brilliant, the car was so fast and I am just over the moon with this result,” said Watt.

Göransson took the lead of the race in the first corner with a brisk maneuver on pole man Tommy Rustad. The BMW man then pulled away in a superior lead until there was two laps left.

Göransson suddenly went off track in high speed in the first corner, seriously damaging his BMW 320si. The reigning champion was not able to get out of the car on his own and was brought to hospital for a further check up. Göransson is not likely to take part in the second race.

Rustad inherited second place with a crossed team mate in the form of James Thompson in third. Thompson was overtaken by Watt earlier in the race, with the Dane pushing his way past.

“It was not a racing maneuver in my opinion, he just phunted me out of the way. But a great result for the team, I am really pleased to be on the podium in my first race for Volvo,” said Thompson.

Rickard Rydell fought hard to keep fourth, privateer driver Johan Stureson put hard pressure on the Chevrolet driver for the majority of the race. Stureson lost out at the end of the race to Roger Eriksson who claimed fifth.

Colin Turkington had a race long fight with Mattias Andersson for eight, that turned in to seventh as Göransson retired. The 2009 BTCC champion was able to get past Andersson with just a couple of laps remaining, meaning that Andersson is going to start from pole in the second race with Turkington right behind him.

“It was hard work. The car was amazing, we have got a really good race setup and that should be even better for the second race,” said Turkington.

Jan “Flash” Nilsson and Patrik Olsson rounded off top ten. WestCoast Racing driver Martin Öhlin further confirmed the dark first race weekend for the team as he retired after just five laps due to a broken steering rod after contact with Honda driver Tomas Engström.