Photo: Racefoto.se

New track and ‘night time’ racing for Sweden’s “midnight sun” race

The TCR Scandinavia championship’s third meeting of 2019 takes place this weekend at a brand-new circuit at the Skellefteå Drive Center in Sweden’s Västerbotten county, just south of the Arctic Circle.

The 4.120km circuit is also the country’s longest, and the event will take place in unique circumstances, as at the height of summer, it doesn’t get dark in this region, with Swedish Lapland famed for its “midnight sun.”

The circuit is also the home track of former World Touring Car Championship driver Robert Dahlgren, who goes to his home race with a slender lead of the championship after a strong weekend two weeks’ ago at Anderstorp, with the PWR Racing Cupra driver one point ahead of Micke Kågered Volkswagen driver Andreas Ahlberg.

As is a fairly standard occurrence in national series with races at the far end of the country, the entry has taken a bit of hit, with no guest drivers this weekend, and none of the Danish drivers, who are over 1,500km away, making the trek to the northern Swedish region.

This means a nine-car entry this weekend featuring the three PWR Racing Cupras, the three Brink Motorsport Audis, Mattias Andersson’s MA:GP Honda Civic TCR and the two Micke Kågered Racing Volkswagens of Ahlberg and Tomas Engström will be the only representatives in an all-Swedish affair.

“I’ve been there before it was a track, and what they have done and the amount of work they’ve done is fantastic,” said Dahlgren to TouringCarTimes.

“The whole town is behind the event and that’s all they talk about; I think there’s going to be a big crowd there.

“It’s absolutely great to have a new circuit on the calendar, and the plan is to have it permanently on the calendar the same date each year, the same time.”

Entry list

No – Driver – Team – Car
2 – Robert Dahlgren – PWR Racing – SEAT Dealer Team – Cupra TCR
4 – Andreas Wernersson – Brink Motorsport – Audi RS 3 LMS
17 – Tomas Engström – Micke Kågered Racing – Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR
19 – Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky – PWR Racing – SEAT Dealer Team – Cupra TCR
20 – Mattias Andersson – Honda Racing Sweden – Honda Civic FK2 TCR
21 – Andreas Ahlberg – Micke Kågered Racing – Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR
51 – Hannes Morin – Brink Motorsport – Audi RS 3 LMS
59 – Peter “Poker” Wallenberg – Poker Racing For Charity – Cupra TCR
71 – Tobias Brink – Brink Motorsport – Audi RS 3 LMS

Timetable

Friday 14th June
09:00 – Test 1
11:30 – Test 2
14:10 – Test 3
19:15 – Qualifying

Saturday 15th June
12:00 – Warm up
14:30 – Race 1
20:05 – Race 2

All times CEST