Robert Dahlgren scores his first win of the year at Falkenberg

Robert Dahlgren has taken his first win of the 2018 STCC season at Falkenberg, fending off a late charge in his PWR Cupra TCR from the KMS Volkswagen of Johan Kristoffersson, while Daniel Haglöf charged from 13th to third in the final order.

Dahlgren kept ahead of Andreas Wernersson’s Volkswagen into Turn 1, while the best start was made by Mattias Andersson in the Honda Civic, who launched from seventh on the grid to fifth

Haglöf was making lightning progress from 13th on the grid, and was already up to sixth by the end of the second lap.

The safety car was soon deployed when Olli Kangas locked up the brakes on his Cupra TCR into Turn 1 at the start of lap five and spun the WestCoast Racing Volkswagen of Jessica Bäckman around, and her car required recovery.

The race was restarted just two laps later, with Haglöf diving past both Mattias Andersson’s Honda and the Volkswagen of WestCoast driver Fredrik Ekblom to move up to fourth.

The safety car was soon out again as Oliver Söderström in the Lestrup Racing Volkswagen was out after an incident with KMS Volkswagen driver Hugo Nerman.

The safety car suspended the race for seven laps as Söderström’s car was recovered, with the race resuming on lap 15.

Kristoffersson made a move on Wernersson to grab second on the following lap, and then harried race leader Dahlgren for the remainder of the race, but was unable to make his way past.

Wernersson meanwhile was fighting to keep back Haglöf and went on to cross the line third, but was given a one second penalty for unfair driving which handed the final podium position to Haglöf.

Dahlgren leads the standings by 25 points from Kristoffersson, who now moves past Haglöf in the standings, with Race 2 following at 15:20 CEST with the Audi of Tobias Brink starting from pole position.