Photo: STCC

Fredrik Ekblom leads KMS front row lock-out at Knutstorp

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Fredrik Ekblom produced a stunning lap in Q1 to claim the first pole position of the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship at a wet Knutstorp, with team-mate Fredrik Blomstedt completing a KMS one-two.

Ekblom spent much of the session in third but managed to pull out a lap-time of 1:08.188 to beat Blomstedt by just over two-tenths to ensure a clean-sweep of the front-row for the Volkswagen Dealer Team. PWR driver Robert Dahlgren will line up third for tomorrow’s first race, but by setting the fastest time in Q2 in his SEAT León, he will start the second race from pole.

Tobias Brink and Dennis Strandberg rounded out the top five, while Nicklas Oscarsson hauled the new Kia Cee’d into the top 10 in ninth.

Q1

Afternoon rain made the track slippery at best and dropped the average lap-times by around eight seconds as Q1 began. Tobias Brink was the driver who adapted to the conditions best as he set the fastest overall times across all three sectors.

Second practice pace-setter Daniel Haglöf was one of the few to get within 0.2 seconds of Brink but team-mate Dahlgren went one better and took over at the top of the standings.

Fellow PWR drivers Poker Wallenberg and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky fared less well and the latter, who had spent time in the top 10 couldn’t quite put a lap together and narrowly missed out on a Q2 appearance.

In the dying moments of the 15-minute Q1, Ekblom and Blomstedt then ran consecutive laps, with each usurping Dahlgren at the head of the field and locking out the front row for KMS.

Q2

After missing out on race one pole, Dahlgren responded in the best possible fashion by setting the fastest time in the 10 minute second segment. He beat Brink by nearly 0.4 seconds  with a lap of 1:08.642, the only driver to break into the 1:08s.

Fresh rain just before the start of Q2 meant that the times would not fall any further. Brink himself was a fraction under 0.3 seconds faster than Ekblom behind in his Audi Rs3 LMS with Haglöf back in fourth.

The surprise package of Q2 was the SEAT león of Andreas Andersson who made it into the final segment of qualifying by ending Q2 in fifth place. The LMS driver from Skåne was 1.2 seconds slower than Dahlgren’s fastest time but managed to edge out Blomstedt to claim the final available spot for Q3.

Q3

The five-minute dash for Q3 glory began in a similar fashion to the previous two, with Haglöf leading the way initially, only to be beaten yet again by the mercurial Ekblom, who turned in a lap-time which was just over 0.1 seconds faster than Dahlgren in second.

Haglöf, a further four-hundredths back took third ahead of Brink and Andersson.

Ekblom’s dominance means that he has only been beaten around the Knutstorp circuit twice all year, both times coming this weekend.

Race one at Knutstorp takes place tomorrow at 11:00 CET