Mattias Andersson hails “perfect” race after Karlskoga victory

Mattias Andersson took his first win of 2019 in comfortable fashion in the first race at the Gelleråsen Arena, overtaking championship leader Robrt Dahlgren at the start, and called the performance one of his greatest wins in Scandinavian touring cars.

The 46-year-old had a perfect launch in his MA:GP Honda Civic TCR from second on the grid, after qualifying just a fraction behind Dahlgren, with Andersson saying the weekend on the whole had been a great performance for the car.

“I think that was one of my best wins ever,” said Andersson to TouringCarTimes.

“The car was perfect, it’s not just the start, but today we also had good pace. I was all the way past Robert (Dahlgren) before the first corner, and after that I got my head down and did a few quick laps and from there we had a strong lead, and then I just wanted to manage my tyres in case he came back at me in the final laps, but he didn’t.

“I was fourth and second in Falkenberg in terms of positions, but to be honest, I didn’t have the speed – while our first race win today it was fair to be first, we had the pace and it was a perfect race.”

Andersson finished fifth in Race 2 and looked like he could have finished further up, also making a good start from fifth on the grid, but he made contact with Tomas Engström’s Kågered Racing Volkswagen down the straight, which turned Engström into Dahlgren’s Cupra, with both cars out, and the Audi of Andreas Wernersson was able to slip by.

“In Race 2, we made a good start, but the track is narrow and it’s quite a long way down. I saw Tomas was pointing to the left when he stopped on his grid spot, so I expected him to go to the middle.

“When the lights went off, I was side-by-side with him immediately, and then we touched. For me, it’s a racing incident.

“It’s a shame we had a crash at all, but I felt I was 95% past Tomas when the touch happened.”