Tobias Brink takes shock pole for Mantorp Park finale
Tobias Brink has moved one point closer to Robert Dahlgren in the championship, after the Audi driver took a last-gasp pole position in qualifying at Mantorp Park, despite Dahlgren having shown everyone the way in practice.
It was Mattias Andersson, in his repaired Honda Civic TCR, who was fastest in Qualifying 1 with a time of 1:19.507, with Brink and Dahlgren both within 33-thousandths of a second at the end of the session.
In Q2, Dahlgren throw down the gauntlet with a time of 1:19.346, but on his second run, Brink went even faster, setting a time of 1:19.233 to take provisional pole position.
Dahlgren pushed hard to hit back on his next lap, but lost time in the final sector, and by then he’d had the best of his tyres.
Andersson qualified third in his Honda, while Daniel Haglöf, on his championship return, made a late improve to jump up to fourth ahead of his PWR Racing team-mate Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky.
Andreas Wernersson, also mathematically in the championship fight, qualified sixth and secures pole position for the reversed grid second race.
Andreas Ahlberg, the Kågered Volkswagen driver who can also win the championship, just missed the top six and will start seventh for both of tomorrow’s races.
Race 1 is scheduled for 12:55 CEST, and Race 2 at 15:28.
