Tom Coronel was a winner again in the WTCC Trophy when the FIA World Touring Car Championship stopped off in China late last month. The ROAL Motorsport driver looks back on his trip to Shanghai.
“Qualifying made it clear once again how exciting the FIA WTCC is. Differences are measured in thousandths of a second. And in my case, that also was the difference between first or 11th place on the grid. It was really close and really annoying that it just didn’t work out, especially when looking at the results afterwards. Norbert Michelisz ended up second in the first race and I was clearly ahead of him in the second race. I could also easily keep up with Mehdi Bennani, who did well in race two.
“In general, I had quite nice races and some nice battles, too. In the first race, I made sure to avoid any damage. Last year, I had a broken wheel underneath my car here. It was clear to see that everyone was eager to get up to the front and I opted to stay out of all the action. That meant that I initially lost something, but you can make up for that later on.
“That also allowed me to start the second race without any damage, which wasn’t the case for everyone. The fact is that we were again the best-placed Chevrolet here, we scored valuable points, we were on the podium and I was able to get a crystal trophy. That was a first, because I never got a crystal trophy before. It turned out not to be Coronel-proof, because I already knocked an edge off, by the way.
“Finally, I would like to congratulate my regular mechanic Pietro. He just became the father of Mathilde and like before, I happily and successfully worked together with Francesco here, who regularly works as a mechanic at Van Amersfoort Racing in Formula 3.”