A terrific start gives Mattias Andersson his first win

Mattias Andersson won Race 1 at Karlskoga to record his first victory of 2019, beating the pole-sitter and championship leader Robert Dahlgren and Andreas Ahlberg in a race that was largely processional.
With Louise Frost’s Alfa Romeo failing to make the start due to a technical problem on the formation lap, eleven cars lined up for the seventeen-lap race. Andersson, starting from second on the grid, made a terrific start and beat Dahlgren to T1, with Tomas Engström, who’d started from P4, being passed by both Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky and Tobias Brink on the opening lap.
Much of the race was then fairly processional, with the only real passing move occurring when Tobias Johansson regained tenth place from Peter Wallenberg on Lap 7. There was, however, a battle brewing between Engström and Brink for fifth place, with the gap between the pair shrinking as the race headed into its closing stages.
On Lap 15, Engström made contact with Brink and the Audi ran wide, which allowed both Engström and Andreas Wernersson to pass for fifth and sixth places respectively. Engström’s joy was short-lived, however, as he locked his brakes after contact with Wernersson’s Audi soon afterwards, which meant Wernersson, Brink and Albin Wärnelöv were all able to dive past.
Andersson took the victory by just under two seconds from Dahlgren, with Ahlberg completing the podium places. Åhlin-Kottulinsky finished fourth ahead of Dahlgren’s closest championship rival Wernersson, with Brink holding off Wärnelöv to finish sixth.
After the race however, Engström received a five-second penalty for the contact with Brink and Wernersson was handed a ten-second penalty for the contact with Engström. The two penalties meant Brink was elevated to fifth place and Wernersson dropped to ninth behind Engström.
The result means Dahlgren has extended his championship lead over Wernersson to 30 points and Brink is now just 10 points behind.
Race 2 at Karlskoga is scheduled to start at 15:45 CET with Brink and Åhlin-Kottulinsky filling the front row of the top-six reverse grid; live streaming at www.tcr-series.com and www.tcr-series.tv.

Race 1
1. Mattias Andersson (Honda Team Sweden, Honda Civic FK2), 17 laps
2. Robert Dahlgren (PWR Racing, CUPRA), 1.939
3. Andreas Ahlberg (Micke Kågered Racing, Volkswagen Golf GTI), 6.563
4. Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky (PWR Racing, CUPRA), 8.846
5. Tobias Brink (Brink Motorsport, Audi RS 3 LMS), 14.239

Championship points
1. Dahlgren 176 pts; 2. Wernersson 146; 3. Brink 136