Tom Coronel says he is still finding his ‘true pace’ in the FIA World Touring Car Cup (WTCR), with the Dutchman professing that his level is ‘a little bit less than expected’.
Coronel has so far secured just one top ten finish from the first four races, and in the first qualifying session at the Hungaroring he was 12th fastest, and fifth of the Hondas.
The Dutchman then retired from the opening race after an oil temperature issue whilst running in 13th position.
He still feels he has to find his ‘true pace’ and points to the fact that the Münnich Motorsport Honda team, who scored a 1-2 finish in the first race, completed four days of testing at the Hungaroring in March.
“Things are going quite good,” said Coronel to TouringCars.Net. “We’re playing with the car and we can see that we still have some testing opportunities. ALL-INKL did four test days here, so they know what they are doing, but we should be around P7, to P10 I think; we are still finding out true pace.
“It’s difficult to say where we are at the moment, but we are a little bit less than I had expected. [On Saturday] I qualified P12 and I want to be between P8, P9 or P10.”
Coronel admits that he is enjoying racing in WTCR with TCR-specification machinery, saying that passes, such as Norbert Michelisz’s move on Yvan Muller for the final podium position, would not have been possible with the previous generation aerodynamic-dependent cars.
“[In race one] I was P12 and everybody was everywhere, everybody was touching, and parts were flying – it was a mess in the first lap. I love it! Finally, it’s rubbing is racing, so finally there is something cool going on. I like it, I like it a lot.
“You saw with Norbi, in normally the most boring race, in Marrakech, it was already exciting and here also you saw Norbi who overtook Yvan two laps before the finish – that would never have happened in a TC1 car, never.
“Normally [at the Hungaroring] it is difficult to overtake, and even here there was a lot of overtaking. You have to try – you are here to see what your opportunities are.
“The good thing is that Norbi is a fighter and he did it, and it’s good for the crowd.”