Robert Dahlgren takes first victory of the TCR STCC era
A lightning start from third on the grid enabled Robert Dahlgren to take the first victory of the new TCR regulations in the first race of the new Scandinavian Touring Car Championship season at Ring Knutstorp.
The PWR man made the most of a poor start from both front-row-starting KMS cars of Fredrik Ekblom and Fredrik Blomstedt to shoot into the lead at the first corner.
Ekblom was forced to defend heavily on a fraught opening lap, but managed to find a way past team-mate Blomstedt on the seventh lap coming out of the final corner. He finished a mere four-tenths of a second behind Dahlgren at the flag.
Dahlgren’s team-mate Daniel Haglöf made a late-race overtake on Blomstedt to claim the final spot on the podium in third.
PWR Junior team-mates Poker Wallenberg and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky came together at the first turn with both finishing their races in the gravel trap and bringing out the Safety Car on the second lap.
The closed-up field made Ekblom’s recovery that bit easier, but also allowed the Honda of Niklas Lilja to made significant progress from 10th on the grid. The LMP Engineering driver pulled off a series of well-executed overtakes to finish a credible sixth by the end.
Behind Dahlgren and Ekblom out front, a superb battle raged for third between Blomstedt, Haglöf and the Audi RS 3 LMS of Tobias Brink. Haglöf harried the back of Blomstedt’s Golf GTI for several laps before finding an aggressive way past in the final series of corners to elbow his way onto the podium.
Blomstedt’s car suffered damage but was able to get to the line safely in fourth.
Lestrup Racing’s Dennis Strandberg initially found himself in this fight but was handed a drive-through penalty for a suspected jump-start. He finished a lonely 15th.
Finding speed in the car in the latter stages of the race, Ekblom managed to close the gap to Dahlgren to just under a second. But Dahlgren, having led from the front throughout had just enough of an advantage in the end to hold on for the win.
The Hondas enjoyed much better pace in the race compared and all scored points. The highest placed behind Lilja was Marcus Annervi in eighth, followed by Mattias Andersson in ninth. The VW of Andreas Ahlberg backed up his morning warm-up pace with a point in 10th.
The second race of the weekend at Knutstorp takes place at 13:40 CET
