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A strong recovery for BMW driver Tom Coronel in FIA WTCC races Hungary

"How much bad luck can one have", surely, Tom Coronel must have asked himself after qualifying for the ninth and tenth round of the 2012 FIA World Touring Car Championship. More than 50,000 spectators came to watch the races at the Hungaroring near Budapest. The 40-year old Dutch driver had unexplained handling problems in qualifying. This prevented the ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC to figure at the front of the field. And to top it all, the stewards of the meeting issued a penalty after it was discovered that a software cable was still connected to the car during the parc fermé procedure, which is prohibited by the regulations. Coronel had to start the ninth season round from the back of the grid. After one lap, he was already in the top twelve, continued his charging drive and ended up sixth. In race two, he again started from the back. After a reasonable start, his progress was halted for a while by the turmoil in the first corner. Thus, Coronel lost contact to the front runners. Nevertheless, he kept up his fighting spirit and recovered to finish twelfth. He is now tied in fourth place of the drivers' standings with Gabriele Tarquini.

After the races, Tom Coronel said: "What a weekend! In qualifying, we really were having massive problems. It was difficult and things didn't work out at all! With new tyres, I was doing exactly the same lap times as with tyres that just had come off the car. We just couldn't get the BMW to work. The track is quite bumpy, so we know that the rear of the car sometimes tends to slide out. But now, it was different all the time. You couldn't prepare yourself for what the car was going to do. Never before had I been that far back in the field, and that at a circuit which isn't particularly known for providing many possibilities to overtake. The poor grid position was made even worse following a mistake by one of our technical people. He thought that it was okay to attack a cable to the car in parc fermé, but that wasn't allowed. Unfortunately, that led to all our times being cancelled and thus, we were relegated to the back of the grid. After warm-up, the problems remained the same and with the ROAL Motorsport people, I once again analysed everything, after which we made a lot of changes on the car: the springs, the roll-bar etcetera. On the formation lap before the start of the first race, it felt much better and I was quite lucky in the first corner. In front of me, several drivers tangled, so that I was already eleventh after one lap. After that, I caught one driver after another and even overtook local hero Michelisz on the final lap. I would immediately have put up my hand for sixth place before the race. It was an overtaking race like I had never driven before. It was like the car had wings. Everything worked, everywhere I braked, turned in or wanted to overtake, the car felt like it should."    

"At the start of the second race, I had a reasonably good getaway, but I had contact with another driver in the first corner. Thus, I lost positions and time once again. And even more important, contact to the group in front of me. To gain some time, I really put a lot of load on the tyres in the early stages and that cost me later on. In spite of gaining some places after nice battles, I just wasn't able to close up to the group in front of me. As a result, I couldn't do any better than twelfth."

Video footage of Tom's race weekend in Hungary can be watched HERE

Result race 1 FIA WTCC Hungary:

1.Yvan Muller 12 laps in 23:23.462
2. Robert Huff +1.259
3. Alain Menu +1.759 (all Chevrolet Cruze 1.6 T)
4. Mehdi Bennani +10.983 (BMW 320 TC)
5. Tiago Monteiro (SR Leon 1.6 T) +15.206
6 .Tom Coronel (ROAL MOTORSPORT BMW 320 TC) +15.786

Result race 2:

1. Norbert Michelisz 11 laps in 23:37.603 (BMW 320 TC)
2. Alain Menu +1.805 (Chevrolet Cruze 1.6 T)
3. Mehdi Bennani +4.998 (BMW 320 TC)
4. Pepe Oriola +6.221 (SEAT LEON WTCC)
12. Tom Coronel +15.438 (ROAL MOTORSPORT BMW 320 TC)

Drivers' standings after 10 of 24 rounds:

1.Yvan Muller 180 points
2. Alain Menu 157
3. Robert Huff 150
4/5. Gabriele Tarquini and Tom Coronel 97

In the 2012 FIA WTCC season, Tom Coronel is being supported by: McGregor, TW Steel -big in oversized watches-, AkzoNobel stickerfix^tm , De Wild signing, Loading Systems, Boretti, Intrax, Holiday Cars, Saarloos, Hanscan and Beelen.