Fredrik Ekblom takes pole position in ultra-tight Falkenberg qualifying

Fredrik Ekblom topped an ultra-tight first segment of qualifying to take pole position for the first STCC race at Falkenberg, beating Kristoffersson Motorsport team-mate Fredrik Blomstedt by just six-thousandths of a second.

Fellow KMS driver Johan Kristoffersson was only a further two-hundredth back from Blomstedt but will line up alongside championship leader Robert Dahlgren’s PWR Racing SEAT León on the second row of the grid.

Daniel Haglöf starts fifth, while Andreas Ahlberg managed to secure sixth on the grid after two difficult tests earlier in the day.

Ekblom will also start race two from pole after taking the fastest time in the second segment of qualifying as KMS Volkswagen dominated.

Q1

As the cars headed out on track, neither the VW nor the SEAT Dealer teams were in any great rush to join the fray, instead opting to let others rubber the circuit in. Marcus Annervi headed the times early on before Ekblom took over the top spot.

Ekblom and Blomstedt then traded fastest times and were split by the smallest of margins at the end of a thrilling battle for race one pole, the former just edging the former Formula Renault UK driver by just 0.006s.

Kristoffersson put in a superb lap late on to snatch third from Dahlgren, and missed out on pole by two-hundredths.

Top Audi was Tobias Brink who claimed a promising seventh while team-mate Micke Ohlsson made it two Brink Motorsport Audi RS 3 LMS’ into Q2 with the ninth best time.

Reuben Kressner continued his strong form of late and creapt into the second segment at the expense of Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky, who missed out on tenth by just four-hundredths of a second.

Joonas Laapalainen also failed to progress to Q2, the Finnish driver locked up both front tyres heavily under braking into the turn one chicane and was forced to abort. He will line up 12th for all three of tomorrow’s races.

Q2

The second segment was a more sedate affair with the KMS VWs heading to the head of the field straight away. Blomstedt was first to set a fully representative time, setting a 44.876 to go quickest by sixth-hundredths.

Ekblom responded with a 44.858 to edge back to the top of the standings to take his second pole in as many qualifying sessions. The one-hundredth of a second gap proved too much for Blomstedt to fight and had to settled for second.

Kristoffersson completed the KMS rout by taking third in a carbon copy of Q1.

Brink managed to split the PWR SEATs by taking the last available for Q3, beating Haglöf by just over a tenth.

Q3

Despite making it into Q3, Dahlgren was unable to set a time due to a technical issue on his car. That paved the way clear for another KMS Volkswagen Golf GTI clean-sweep, with Blomstedt this time setting the fastest time.

Ekblom had to settle for second ahead of Kristoffersson, while Brink finished a superb qualifying in fourth, albeit a clear eight-tenths adrift.

Race one at Falkenberg begins tomorrow at 11:00 CEST.