Robert Dahlgren “relieved” to maintain points lead after double podium

Robert Dahlgren was ‘relieved’ to have extended his Scandinavian Touring Car Championship points advantage over Johan Kristoffersson to 12 points after taking a double podium in Falkenberg.

Dahlgren came into Sunday’s race day on the back-foot after suffering two alternator failures in testing and qualifying. But the PWR Racing driver managed to salvage a fourth and two seconds to maintain his championship lead.

Luck played a part in keeping Dahlgren on top as main title rival, Kristoffersson Motorsport’s Fredrik Ekblom failed to finish the final race after a puncture. This fact was not lost on Dahlgren who was happy to get his SEAT León to the finish.

“I wasn’t actually too worried about the punctures until I saw Ekblom go off the road,” Dahlgren told TouringCarTimes. “We thought we had made changes to stop them happening to us but you never know. You don’t get any warning, it just goes.”

“When the safety car came out, I said on the restart that we should have just stopped the race.”

Dahlgren’s team-mate Daniel Haglöf was another victim of the Falkenberg circuit’s abrasive nature, and had to pit with a flat tyre too. With this in mind, Dahlgren decided to back off in the closing stages.

He said: “Both me and Johan took it really easy on the last lap and just cruised in.”

“Obviously you don’t want to extend the lead in these sorts of circumstances, but all of this is part of racing and I’m very pleased and relieved with the points this weekend.”

“I’ve been on the other side of it and lost out many times. Hopefully we can now keep it together and win the championship,” Dahlgren explained.

“After qualifying, it was a nightmare. And then the plan today was just to maximise what we had and with the steering problem we had yesterday, it was essential we had a strong day.”