Tobias Brink wins frantic first race at Ljungbyhed
Tobias Brink converted his pole position into victory in the first STCC race of the weekend at Ljungbyhed, but the Brink Motorsport driver had to fight for it.
The rolling start saw Brink immediately being challenged by his team-mate Jimmy Eriksson who started alongside him on the front row.
The two went side-by-side through the first corners, resulting in contact between the two which allowed Cupra driver Robert Dahlgren into the lead and Volkswagen driver Alexander Graff up to third place.
But Brink responded just a couple of corners later and was able to reclaim the lead from Dahlgren.
Tesla driver Eriksson launched an attack on Graff into Turn 1 in the fight for third place on lap five, an attack which resulted in tears for both as they simultaneously locked their rear brakes and spun – dropping them right down the order.
This promoted Brink Motorsport’s Mikael Karlsson, who started from the back of the grid, up to third place. And the Tesla driver was on the move as he quickly gained on Dahlgren in the fight for second place.
Karlsson launched an attack on the 2022 champion with two laps left and claimed second place. But the Brink Motorsport driver was soon hit with a two-second penalty for hitting the corner markings at Turn 1 and 2 too many times.
And Karlsson made a mistake as he tried to stretch the lead on the last lap, allowing Dahlgren right on the rear bumper of his Tesla Model 3, meaning that he dropped to finish third behind the Cupra driver.
Brink won the race by close to five seconds ahead of Dahlgren and Karlsson.
Former junior champion Axel Bengtsson finished fourth for PWR Racing ahead of Exion Racing’s Linus Ohlsson.
Graff fought his way back up to finish seventh after his incident with Eriksson, with Anton Marklund finishing eighth ahead of Eriksson.
Micke Bern was the sole retirement of the race due to a technical issue.
The second race of the weekend starts at 14:00 CEST.
