Tom Coronel says that he expects to miss the free practice sessions for this weekend’s World Touring Car Championship round in Hungary, with his repaired Chevrolet making its first appearance since Marrakech in qualifying.
The damage to the Dutchman’s car was caused at the start of the second race in Morocco, when contact with Mehdi Bennani sent Coronel into the barriers on both sides of the circuit, being collected by Yvan Muller in the process.
Coronel missed the previous round of the championship whilst his car was sent back to England to be reshelled by RML and then back to ROAL Motorsport in Italy to be fully repaired.
The lack of spare parts for the brand new TC1 RML Cruzes has proved to be one of the biggest problems, with the cars only having been completed just before the start of the season.
“On top [of repairing existing damage] we also lack spare parts, causing an even bigger delay in repairing the car,” explained Coronel. “Despite all efforts by ROAL Motorsport to get the car ready in time, we will probably not make it to the free practice, meaning that the shakedown of the car is scheduled for the qualifying sessions, which is not the most ideal preparation for Sunday’s races. But we will have to deal with that and I’m already satisfied being able to race again in Hungary.”
Coronel congratulated car builder RML for the work they did on the car’s shell since Marrakech two and a half weeks ago, and also his Italian ROAL Motorsport team for the subsequent work they have done on repairing his car.
“RML did a fantastic job,” added Coronel. “It was quite a challenge to transport the car from Marrakech via Paul Ricard to RML’s workshop in Wellingborough, where they completely repaired the body in just three days.
“Last Sunday evening the structure arrived at ROAL Motorsport in Italy, where Roberto Ravaglia’s guys immediately jumped on it and started rebuilding it. Respect for the way how everybody is doing his utmost to get me racing again this weekend!”