Daniel Haglöf takes the blame for collision which could decide the title

Fredrik Ekblom believes his chances of taking a third Scandinavian Touring Car Championship title are effectively over after contact with PWR’s Daniel Haglöf left him scoreless in race two at Anderstorp, an incident the SEAT driver takes the blame for.

Ekblom was forced onto the grass under braking for Turn Two by Haglöf after the Kristoffersson Motorsport driver attempted to take third place at the safety car restart.

Haglöf was handed a 30-second time penalty for moving in the braking zone, costing him third place on the road. Ekblom finished a lowly 12th and now trails Dahlgren by 62 points in the championship standings with just four races left.

In his post-race assessment of the incident, 2007 champion Ekblom was far from magnanimous.

He told TouringCarTimes: “I had a good run on him and dived on the inside. We were more or less side-by-side and he just moved over on me.”

Asked whether he thought Haglöf’s intention to push him onto the grass, Ekblom said: “How can you look at it any differently? It was not a normal line to take. It was a completely wrong line into the corner so I can’t see how you would think anything else.”

While race stewards handed him a 30-second punishment – dropping him outside the points to 14th – Haglöf accepted the punishment but denied the move was intentional.

“From inside the car, I didn’t think it was deserving of a penalty but when the stewards showed me the footage, I realised that it was the wrong move,” Haglöf told TouringCarTimes.

“Obviously it was not my intention to push him off, but the track gets narrower on entry, so the contact we had earlier put him on the grass. And then he couldn’t stop his car in time.”

The ramifications for both Ekblom in the drivers’ championship is not lost on either party. Haglöf said: “It’s a shame for Ekblom in the championship because he has lost points. It’s also a shame for us [PWR Racing] because we have also lost points in the team’s championship.

Ekblom’s misery was compounded by the fact that chief title rival Robert Dahlgren won the race, extending his already large points advantage over the KMS driver. According to Ekblom, any realistic chance of winning the championship is gone now, despite losing the title in 2000 while holding a similar points margin.

“We don’t have a realistic chance of winning it now,” Ekblom said. “We will keep fighting till the end but unless I avoid Daniel, I don’t stand a chance. In 2000 there were double points in the final round then, which we don’t have this year. For me [the title] is not possible now.”