Tom Coronel has described his World Touring Car Championship weekend in Slovakia as being ‘damage control’ after he managed just a solitary point in Sunday’s races.
Coronel struggled to find pace around the Slovakiaring compared to the other manufacturers, resulting in the Dutchman qualifying his Chevrolet down in the penultimate grid position of 16th for both races.
With both of the other Chevrolet RML teams Campos Racing and Münnich Motorsport also struggling, Coronel was left with an uphill task for Sunday.
Whilst race one yielded a lowly 15th place result, the main race saw Coronel take tenth at the chequered flag, which subsequently became ninth after Volvo’s Thed Björk was excluded from the results.
“Fortunately, a world championship point after all,” summarised Coronel after the races. “That means we didn’t come here for nothing. This circuit is really hard for the Chevrolets. It seems like the two simply weren’t made for each other. We were by no means the only ones having troubles, the other Cruze drivers were equally suffering.
“In free practice, my speed was still reasonable, so we didn’t make too many changes on the car, but when the others went out with fresh tyres, the gap got bigger. The question how to solve this remained. That turned out to be very difficult and with the round in Hungary following next week already, we decided to avoid any unnecessary risks.”
With Coronel expecting the round at the Hungaroring in one week to be much better suited to his car, he took the decision to treat the Slovakia event as ‘damage control’.
The next event will be the first time the compensation weights are recalculated in 2016 – something which Coronel hopes will give him more of a chance against his rivals.
“In Hungary, I came second last year and that is a track that definitely suits us much better. Therefore, we decided to save one fresh set of tyres for next weekend.”
“[In the main race] I finished as the best-placed Chevrolet driver and the third privateer. What we did here literally was damage control.
“Now, our focus is on next week when we are racing in Hungary and the new handicap weights are coming into force as well. There, I hope to have a good performance and perhaps repeat my second place from last year. Now that would be really cool! It is a track that suits me.”