Daniel Haglöf takes commanding pole at Anderstorp
SEAT driver Daniel Haglöf has taken pole position for the opening Scandinavian Touring Car Championship race at Anderstorp. The PWR Racing man set a time of 1:37.750 in Q1 to beat Kristoffersson Motorsport’s Fredrik Blomstedt to the top spot by four-tenths of a second.
Title rivals Fredrik Ekblom and Robert Dahlgren will line up third and fourth respectively. Behind the leading quartet, Joonas Lappalainen was a strong fifth, albeit nearly a second adrift in the Kart in Club Academy Audi RS 3 LMS.
Blomstedt was fastest in Q2 to take race two pole from Haglöf, while Dahlgren and Ekblom reversed their Q1 starting positions.
Q1
The PWR SEATs were quick to jump to the top of the standings, but instead of second test pace-setter Dahlgren, it was Haglöf who ended up stringing the best clear lap together.
He responded to Dahgren’s early 1:38.470 with a time nearly half a second quicker than his team-mate.
Blomstedt headed the KMS charge and got to within seven-hundredths of a second of Haglöf’s time, but had to settle for second by the flag.
Brink Motorsport’s Micke Ohlsson recovered from an off in the second test, which damaged the front splitter and forcing a change, to end the session sixth ahead of team-mate Tobias Brink in ninth.
Sandwiching Brink on the race one grid are the two Volkswagens of Andreas Ahlberg in eighth and the Lestrup Racing car of Dennis Strandberg, who narrowly edged out the PWR Junior car of Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky for the final spot in Q2 in 10th.
Marcus Annervi, who suffered a gearbox failure in the second test, failed to complete a lap in the first segment.
Q2
While Dahlgren and Ekblom toiled throughout the 10-minute Q2, Haglöf and Blomstedt traded quickest times. The pair, who were split by little over seven-thousandths finished well clear of the field, with Blomstedt the fastest.
Their respective team-mate had, in reality, nothing to worry about from behind as the KMS Volkswagen and PWR SEAT had half a second advantage over the Audi RS 3 LMS of Lappalainen in fifth.
Mattias Andersson hauled his Honda Civic up to sixth, beating the two Brink cars as well as Ahlberg and Strandberg.
Q3
Dahlgren left it late to set the fastest time of the five-minute Q3, finding just enough speed in his SEAT León to top the tables by seven-hundredths of a second from Blomstedt on his last lap.
The championship leader was unable to hook a clean first lap together and risked being last of the five cars that made through to the final segment.
Ekblom and Haglöf took third and fourth, while Lappalainen’s valiant efforts to break the KMS/PWR stronghold were extinguished by Dahlgren’s surge, leaving the Finn fifth for all three of Sunday’s races.
The first STCC race at Anderstorp takes place tomorrow at 10:45 CET.
