Photo: STCC/Anders Helgesson

Tobias Brink sails to victory at Mantorp Park ahead of Rob Huff

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Tobias Brink made the most of his pole position for the first STCC TCR Scandinavia race of the weekend at Mantorp Park, beating Rob Huff by four tenths of a second.

The Brink Motorsport driver pulled away at the beginning of the race and was slowly reeled in by Lestrup Racing Team driver Huff towards the end of the race. But the Brit never got close enough to seriously challenge for the lead.

There was disaster for Huff’s team-mate Oliver Söderström who broke a driveshaft on the warm up lap and was forced to watch the race from the sidelines.

There was contact at the start between Hannes Morin and Poker Wallenberg, resulting in a spin for the Cupra driver while Audi driver Morin was able to continue with some body damage.

Honda driver Mattias Andersson made his usual lightning start and claimed third position from fifth on the grid.

But Andersson soon came under pressure from Kågered Racing driver Emil Persson who made his way past with some contact.

The contact resulted in Andersson going off track at Turn 3 and dropped down to eighth position. The stewards have announced that the move is under investigation.

Persson finished third, a full seven seconds behind the leading duo.

The PWR Racing duo of Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky and Robert Dahlgren made strong progress during the race, finishing fourth and fifth from grid positions eight and 13.

Morin made a strong charge from the back of the grid, climbing to sixth position and was right on the rear bumper of Dahlgren at the end of the race.

Mikael Karlsson finished seventh ahead of Andersson while Norwegian driver Magnus Gustavsen and privateer driver Isac Aronsson rounded off the top ten.

Hyundai driver Albin Wärnelöv had engine issues at the start of the race, with the team just barely getting his car ready in time for the start that was delayed due to an oil spill from an earlier race.

Andreas Ahlberg was given a 20-second penalty for a jump start, dropping him down to 12th position.

The second race of three starts at 13:33 CEST.