ROAL Motorsport have confimred their plans to enter a two-car team in the 2012 FIA World Touring Car Championship. The Italian based team ran Tom Coronel in a single car in the 2011 season, and will keep the Dutchman for the coming season.
The 2011 season saw the team make their comeback to the WTCC, having taken a year out in 2010. Running a single BMW 320 TC for Coronel the team went on to enjoy their strongest-ever season in the series, with Coronel eventually finishing 4th overall in the championship after one win and as the ‘best of the rest’ behind the three Chevrolet drivers.
The team’s second car in 2012 will be driven by Italian Alberto Cerqui. The 19-year-old has already established himself firmly in the touring car world by taking the 2011 Italian Superstars title for ROAL in his first season of professional racing.
Roberto Ravaglia, team principal of ROAL Motorsport, is looking forward to his team’s combination of youth and experience in 2012.
“I am extremely satisfied for lining up two cars in the WTCC 2012,” said Ravaglia. “It is not going to be easy to repeat the very good results scored in 2011 but I am confident and motivated by the presence of two drivers like Tom Coronel and Alberto Cerqui. Tom will give experience and reliability to the team, while Alberto is a young promising driver that showed in 2011 his talent and skill in adapting rapidly to new circuits.
“Our budget will be extremely limited to compete in a technical championship like WTCC but I count on the experience of my technical staff and in the reliability of the BMW 320TC to be among the protagonists.”
Meanwhile the experienced Coronel, who has started the second most WTCC races, is hoping to challenge for third overall in 2012.
“2011 has been very positive to me: race after race I improved the feeling with the team and we ended up fighting constantly for the podium in the last four rounds of the season,” said Coronel, 39. “Building on the final fourth place obtained last year the objective cannot be other than improving it and winning some more races; classification-wise I feel I can fight for the third place.”
Italian youngster Cerqui is looking forward to taking to the touring car stage at a global level and learning the numerous new circuits involved in the WTCC.
“After winning the Italian Superstars 2011, FIA WTCC is the natural choice to continue my career in touring racing cars. Having the chance to continue racing for ROAL Motorsport is a further cause of enthusiasm, even if I am aware that it is not going to be a walk in the park as a lot of circuits will be new to me and the level of rivals will be very high.”