Photo: STCC/Anders Helgesson

Hannes Morin scores maiden STCC win in final Mantorp race

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Hannes Morin scored his maiden STCC TCR Scandinavia victory in the final race at Mantorp Park, making it three out of three wins for Brink Motorsport this weekend.

The Audi RS 3 LMS driver started from the reversed grid pole position and claimed the lead as the lights went to green.

Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky held second place for the first lap but made a mistake on the second lap, allowing PWR Racing team-mate Robert Dahlgren to get past.

Championship leader Tobias Brink started eighth and had already caught Honda driver Mattias Andersson on the second lap in the fight for fourth position.

Brink pushed Andersson sideways at the Mjölby corner, a move that the Brink Motorsport driver was given a five second penalty for.

2012 WTCC champion Rob Huff managed to get past Brink during the incident and was next up to try and pass Andersson who is infamous for his blocking skills.

Huff was right on the rear bumper of Andersson and Brink right behind Huff as they headed for Turn 7. Brink pushed Huff from behind who unwillingly pushed Andersson wide.

The incident resulted in Huff passing Andersson and the stewards handing a warning to the Volkswagen driver.

Brink was not able to get past Andersson until lap 11 of 14, immediately stretching a big enough gap to keep fifth position over the finishing line with his five-second penalty added.

Kågered Racing driver Mikael Karlsson went off in a spectacular way at the Mjölby corner on lap eight, retiring the race with his Volkswagen Golf GTI TCR beached deep in the gravel.

Morin won the race by 1,5 seconds ahead of Dahlgren, with Åhlin-Kottulinsky making it two Cupra drivers on the podium.

Huff crossed the finishing line in fourth, Brink was fifth and Andersson sixth.

Andreas Ahlberg charged through the field from the back of the grid to finish seventh after a dreadful weekend with two non-scoring finishes from the first two races.

Kågered Racing team-mate Emil Persson finished eighth ahead of former championship leader Oliver Söderström. Albin Wärnelöv rounded off the top ten for Experion Racing.

Brink has thanks to his strong performance this weekend claimed the championship lead on 153 points, 14 points ahead of Huff and 17 points ahead of Dahlgren who headed the standings ahead of this weekend.

The 2020 STCC TCR Scandinavia season finale takes place next weekend at Knutstorp in the south of Sweden.