Photo: STCC

Tobias Brink and Jimmy Eriksson claims final STCC poles of 2024

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Title rivals and team-mates Tobias Brink and Jimmy Eriksson claimed the final two STCC pole positions of 2024 in the Mantorp Park season finale qualifying session.

Points leader Brink beat Tesla team-mate Mikael Karlsson to pole in the first qualifying session by 0.125 seconds.

Axel Bengtsson surprised by claiming his best qualifying result of the year with third place, two tenths from Brink.

Calle Bergman continued his strong form in qualifying with fourth place for Exion Racing BMW, just 0.013 seconds slower than Bengtsson.

Title contender Eriksson made a mistake on his shootout lap, braking too late into Turn 1 and came close to the gravel trap. The mistake dropped him down to finish fifth, 0.339 seconds from P1.

Reigning champion Robert Dahlgren had a tough qualifying session, finishing sixth and eighth, with the title hopes now very dim for the Cupra driver.

Former GT racer Eriksson bounced back strongly for Q2, setting 52.707 to claim pole by 0.226 seconds over Brink.

Former karting world champion Viktor Gustavsson impressed with his so far best STCC qualifying result in third place, just eight thousands of a seconds behind Brink.

Bengtsson was fourth fastest while Karlsson finished fifth ahead of BMW driver Månz Thalin.

The qualifying points means that Brink has slightly extended his lead to 16 over Karlsson, 20 over Eriksson and 47 over Dahlgren with 50 points available from the two races tomorrow.

The first race of the season finale starts at 10:30 CEST on Saturday.