ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel says that it was a ‘good weekend’ in Shanghai’s World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) races, despite the Dutchman failing to break into the top five.
The races at the Shanghai International circuit marked the second meeting for the series in just seven days. However the circuits could not contrast more, with Beijing’s tight and twisty nature replaced with Shanghai’s fast, open and much more modern complex.
Coronel had been amongst the fastest of the Chevrolet drivers throughout the weekend. In qualifying he was in the all-important tenth position in Q2 with just minutes remaining when called into the weigh bridge. The resulting time loss prevented Coronel from attempting a final lap and, as the session came to a close, Proteam’s Mehdi Bennani improves his time to knock Coronel down to 11th on the grid for both races.
“In qualifying Citroën and Honda really were too fast for us,” said Coronel. “In the first session, I ended up ninth and I was eleventh in the second session. That was really disappointing, as I was in tenth place for a long time and I came into the pits for a tyre change.
“I was the only driver to be waved into the FIA pit box for weighing and to have the ride height of my car checked. That takes approximately a minute and a half, so I arrived too late at the ROAL Motorsport pit box to have the tyres changed and still make it out in time for another quick lap.
“Thus, I lost my tenth place, and pole position for the second race as a result, to Mehdi Bennani. Certainly, it is all part of the competition, but this time, it was really disappointing.”
A relatively quiet race one saw Coronel make more improvements from his grid position than any other TC1 driver, finishing the race in eighth position as the best Chevrolet driver.
“I had a fantastic start,” described the 42-year-old. “I accelerated from zero to 100 km/h in 3.6 seconds, which was my fastest start ever with the Chevrolet. Then, I was involved in a nice battle with [Hugo] Valente after I already had overtaken Bennani at the start.”
Race two again saw improvements for Coronel who, although unable to keep pace with the Citroën and Honda cars in front, finished in sixth positon, again as the best Chevrolet driver.
“I had another good start and I was even in front of Ma [Qing Hua] in one of the fast Citroën’s,” added Coronel. “In the early stages of the race, I had some battles, but later on, it was a rather solitary race.
“The fact that I was the fastest Chevrolet driver in both races clearly reflects that my car runs well, but that we are affected by the extra weight.
“The big differences compared to last weekend are the circuit, because this is a proper race circuit, but also the extra weight we were given following the success for our team during the previous meeting. That certainly made it more difficult to compete with the Hondas. In hindsight, the weekend was quite good.
Coronel admitted that he is looking forward to the next round of the championship in Japan, where he has taken three of his four WTCC wins. Coronel spent much of his early racing career in the country in the late 1990s in single seaters before switching to touring cars.
“The next round will take place at the Suzuka circuit in a fortnight, where I assume we will be a little bit lighter and the Hondas a little bit heavier,” said Coronel. “Therefore, I expect some more competition. On top of that, the races will be in Japan, my second home country and the country where I raced for many years. That always gives me some extra energy. I have already won there in WTCC and I really hope that we will be able to repeat that once again. Who knows, maybe that little bit of energy that I just mentioned will help us to pull that off!”