Daniel Haglöf takes first win of 2017 in Anderstorp opener
Daniel Haglöf claimed his first Scandinavian Touring Car Championship victory of the season in comfortable fashion, leading from start-to-finish in the opening race at Anderstorp.
The PWR Racing driver led every lap from pole position and beat Kristoffersson Motorsport’s Fredrik Ekblom by 1.26 seconds.
Team-mate Robert Dahlgren, in the second SEAT León completed the podium in third.
The key to Haglöf’s victory lay in his start, judging the lights perfectly to streak clear of the poor-starting KMS duo of Ekblom and Fredrik Blomstedt.
Ekblom’s championship hopes were boosted slightly as he managed to jump past Blomstedt into the first corner. But crucially, Dahlgren also forced his way ahead of Blomstedt on the approach to Turn Four on the opening tour to take third.
The leading trio remained as such for the duration, with Haglöf eking out enough of a margin to comfortably take the flag for his first win of the 2017 season thus far.
Away from the podium battle, there was frenetic action throughout, with Finnish driver Joonas Lappalainen finishing an excellent fourth.
The Kart in Club Academy driver started fifth but made a daring lunge on Blomstedt under braking for the final corner to take the position. But any hopes of the former Audi TT Cup champion worrying Dahgren in front were extinguished when Blomstedt – who lost a further position to the Brink Motorsport Audi of Micke Ohlsson – fought back.
A late surge from Blomstedt left Lappalainen defending heavily on the final lap. The Audi, noticeably twitching on acceleration appeared easy pickings for the much faster KMS Volkswagen Golf GTI, but Lappalainen held on to take fourth at the flag by just one-tenth.
The fight for the final points was frantic and, at times, messy throughout the seven-lap encounter. Dennis Strandberg endured a turbulent first STCC race since Falkenberg after first, pitching the PWR Junior Audi RS 3 LMS of Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky off into the gravel at Turn Four, before being rotated himself following a botched move on Tobias Brink exiting the last turn.
Strandberg finished last of the 18 finishers while Åhlin-Kottulinsky was forced out on the spot.
These incidents allowed the Honda of Mattias Andersson to head a compact group of four cars behind sixth placed finisher Ohlsson to the line.
Andreas Ahlberg held onto eighth at the flag, ahead of the Brovallen Audi of Reuben Kressner and the recovering Brink in 10th.
Race two at Anderstorp begins at 13:45 CET.
