Home race for Andreas Bäckman

This weekend, June 17^th-18^th, Andreas Bäckman competes at Drivecenter Arena near Skellefteå, Sweden in the second STCC event for the season. It will also be his home race on this year's STCC calendar.
– All other events of the season take place in southern Sweden, so it will be fun to compete at home in the Midnight Sun Race on a track in northern Sweden for the first time, Andreas Bäckman says.

STCC (Scandinavian Touring Car Championship) is Sweden's most prestigious motorsport championship and is today the leading class for Touring Car Racing in Sweden. The cars are built according to the global TCR regulations, which means that the cars used in STCC are the same as those in the other TCR series around the world.

The series consists of six races that are run on different Swedish tracks and this weekend, June 17^th-18^th, the second round of the championship are being held at Drivecenter Arena. Drivecenter Arena is the longest track on this year's STCC calendar and is located in Fällfors, which is located near Skellefteå, Sweden.

Andreas competes together with Lestrup Racing Team in an Audi RS 3 LMS TCR car in this year's STCC season and is in fifth place in the driver's championship after the first race at Ljungbyheds Motorbana two weeks ago.

- I felt that I had the speed in the season opener at Ljungbyhed but the qualifying did not go quite as I had hoped, but it was still a lot of positives to take with me from the race with a good recovery from tenth to fifth place, Andreas Bäckman says.

- All other events of the season take place in southern Sweden, so it will be fun to compete at home in the Midnight Sun Race on a racing track in northern Sweden for the first time. The track will be new to me and most of my competitors have competed here several times before, so it will be important for me to learn the track and get into it quickly, Andreas Bäckman says.

The structure of the race weekend
Already on Thursday evening, the practice begins with two official test sessions, both of which are one hour long. Then on Friday morning, the race weekend continues with two more practice sessions, which are followed by two timed qualifying sessions in the evening. The timed qualifying consists of two qualifying segments, Q1 (20 minutes) and Q2 (10 minutes), where it is important to drive as fast as possible and the lap times are counted. The eight fastest drivers in Q1 will continue to drive in Q2. The result from Q1 determines the starting position for Race 1 and the Q2 starting position for Race 2 for the top eight drivers.

Saturday is the race-day and consists of three races; Race 1, Race 2 and Race 3. The starting position for Race 3 is based on the result from Race 2 but with the reverse starting order for the eight top drivers from that race.

Points are awarded to the top five in the Qualifying and the top 15 in each race.

The event are broadcasted LIVE at STCC+
The STCC weekend at Drivecenter Arena are broadcasted LIVE at: plus.stcc.se
Live-timing:
raceresults.se
livetiming.getraceresults.com
More information about STCC can be found here: stcc.se

Information about the Midnight Sun Race:
midnattssolsloppet.se
drivecenter.se
stcc.se/race/midnattsolsloppet-skelleftea/

Timetable for this weekend (STCC round 2 -Skellefteå):
(all times are in CEST/Swedish time)

Thursday June 16^th:
18:00 Official test
20:00 Official test

Friday June 17^th:
11:00 Free Practice 1
16:00 Free Practice 2
19:45 Qualifying (Q1 and Q2)

Saturday June 18^th:
12:55 Race 1 (Broadcasted LIVE on plus.stcc.se)
15:50 Race 2 (Broadcasted LIVE on plus.stcc.se)
20:10 Race 3 (Broadcasted LIVE on plus.stcc.se)

About the track (Drivecenter Arena):

Located in: Fällfors, Skellefteå, Sweden
Length: 4,270 km
Corners: 16
Race duration: 8 laps (18 minutes + 1 lap)
Lap record (TCR): 1min 52.413s

STCC Championship Standings before round 2 of 6:

STCC – TCR Scandinavia – Drivers’ Championship Standings – Overall (Top 3)
STCC 2022 (After 1 of 6 race weekends)

1: Robert Dahlgren (SWE), 25 p.
2: Tobias Brink (SWE), 20 p.
3: Oliver Söderström (SWE), 19 p.
–
5: Andreas Bäckman (SWE), 11 p.

See the full standings here

STCC – TCR Scandinavia – Teams’ Championship Standings – Overall (Top 3)
STCC 2022 (After 1 of 6 race weekends)

1: CUPRA Dealer Team - PWR Racing, 35 p.
2: Brink Motorsport, 35 p.
3: Lestrup Racing Team, 30 p.

See the full standings here


Did you miss the previous STCC race at Ljungbyhed?
CLICK HERE to see the replay at STCC+


Follow the STCC season at:
Live-stream: plus.stcc.se
Other information: stcc.se
Facebook: facebook.com/STCCOfficial/
Twitter: twitter.com/stcc_official
Instagram: instagram.com/stcc_official/
YouTube: youtube.com/c/STCCTV

Free rights to use the images.

Download press-photos here:
http://bit.ly/jabaeckman-photos
https://www.mynewsdesk.com/se/ja-backman/images