ComtoYou Racing’s Tom Coronel admitted he “didn’t have enough speed to attack” after being unable to get past race long rival Mat’o Homola in the TCR Europe series at Monza.
Race two of the weekend saw Coronel promoted to second in the final standings after on the road winner Franco Griolami was handed a 30-second time penalty after being deemed to have overtaken rival Mikel Azcona under yellow flags.
News of Girolami’s demotion out of the points means Coronel further cements his move up to third in the Drivers Standings, with the Dutch driver walking away from the races in Italy with two top three finishes.
“It’s great to be on the podium again and to have moved into third in the standings,” said Coronel at the end of the second race of the weekend.
“Maybe I should have pushed a bit harder, but I didn’t have enough speed to attack.
All I had to do was to stay where I was and try to benefit from other people’s mistakes.”
Coronel also believed that although he was fighting with a number of drivers for the leading positions in the second race of the weekend, he fought in a clean and sensible way throughout.
“At the beginning I focused on staying out of trouble,” explained the Dutchman.
“One of the advantages of getting older is that you have the experience to see what could go wrong. In ten laps there are always a couple of guys who make mistakes, and this is what happened.
“I didn’t make mistakes and I think I was the only one who never cut a chicane…“
Coronel, who along with championship leader Azcona, could be set to miss the final round of the TCR Europe season due to a calendar clash with the WTCR event at Most in the Czech Republic on the weekend of October 8-10.