Johan Kristoffersson scores close-fought Anderstorp pole position

Johan Kristoffersson has taken pole position for the second round of the 2018 Scandinavian Touring Car Championship at the Anderstorp Raceway, setting the fastest time in his KMS Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR, just 0.016 seconds ahead of championship leader Daniel Haglöf.

WestCoast Racing’s Fredrik Ekblom topped the time sheets in a disrupted first part of qualifying. The Volkswagen driver was quickly down into the 1:37s, but more was still to come from Q2.

The disruption was caused when the Experion Racing Volkswagen of Albin Wärnelöv went off at the final corner just before the half-way mark of the session.

With ten minutes in Q2, there was just time for one set of laps around the 4.025km circuit, with Knutstorp pole-sitter Philip Morin putting down a marker of 1:37.650 in his PWR Racing Cupra TCR.

This was soon bettered by team-mate Daniel Haglöf, despite carrying 20kg of success ballast, while Johan Kristoffersson quickly followed this up with a pole position lap of 1:37.561, with the top three covered by less than a tenth of a second.

Reigning champion Robert Dahlgren was fourth, with Kristoffersson set to lead a train of PWR Racing Cupras for Race 1, while Andreas Wernersson was fifth fastest in the second-best of the Volkswagens, driving for Lestrup Racing.

Ekblom had to settle for sixth, qualifying ahead of Hugo Nerman’s KMS Volkswagen, the two Brink Motorsport Audis of Tobias Brink and Micke Ohlsson, with MA:GP’s Mattias Andersson rounding out the top ten and securing pole position for the reversed grid second race.

The results of qualifying remain provisional, as both PWR drivers Robert Dahlgren and Daniel Haglöf have been flagged for investigation after Q1.

The first race is scheduled for 12:45 CET on Sunday.