Robert Dahlgren: STCC title now only “a matter of time”

Robert Dahlgren says it is just “a matter of time” before he secures his maiden Scandinavian Touring Car Championship title after claiming a double-victory at the penultimate round at Anderstorp.

The PWR Racing driver backed up a third place in the opening race with two commanding victories to build a 75-point lead over Kristoffersson Motorsport’s Fredrik Ekblom in the standings.

Ekblom can still mathematically claim the title at Mantorp in two weeks’ time, but must more or less claim all three poles and win all three races while Dahlgren barely scores any points.

Dahlgren led the third race from pole and fended off a late challenge from Ekblom’s KMS team-mate Fredrik Blomstedt to take the win by just seven-tenths of a second. The key to this win Dahlgren says, was preserving his tyres after pulling an early gap on Blomstedt.

“We had a decent qualifying, nothing special, although we felt like we had something left on used-rubber, but we weren’t sure as we hadn’t done enough laps to be certain,” Dahlgren told TouringCarTimes.

“I saw Blomstedt getting close towards the end, but he wasn’t close enough for me to worry too much. When he got a bit closer, I knew I had enough performance in the tyres left to speed up and empty it, which I was able to do.”

Dahlgren’s weekend was in contrast to Ekblom’s who managed just 30 points from the three races compared to Dahlgren’s 65. It means Dahlgren heads to Mantorp with a much easier task in order to secure his maiden STCC championship.

He said: “I will go all-in to deny him [Ekblom] the pole at Mantorp and try to win it on the Friday and do the job. I’ve looked forward to the championship for so long and I believe I’m going to win it, it’s just a matter of time now.”

He concluded: “Anything can happen of course but I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen.”