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Tom Coronel keeps damage limited in FIA WTCC races in Portugal

The 4.8 kilometres long Boavista street circuit in Porto (Portugal) hosted the seventh round of the 2013 FIA WTCC. With his ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC, Tom Coronel was one of the 24 drivers to race here. The most remarkable situation occurred in qualifying. The 41-year old Dutch driver having ended up seventh in the first session, he was classified tenth after the second heat. With the reversed grid ruling in the World Touring Car Championship, this means pole position for race two. Eventually, however, things turned out to be totally different. A few hours after publication of the qualifying results, these were revised due to a glitch in the time-keeping system. The Dutchman lost a position and found himself in eleventh place on the starting grid for the second race. Infuriated about the situation, Tom Coronel started the first race, in which he finished seventh. Due to the fact that two drivers who were placed in front of him didn't make the start, Tom Coronel started the second race from ninth place and finished eighth. In the WTCC drivers' standings, Tom Coronel is currently seventh with 98 points.

After the races, Tom Coronel commented: "We knew in advance that a lot would depend on qualifying here. It is a street circuit and that comes with the disadvantage that overtaking isn't easy. We were quick, no doubt about it. In first free practice, we even topped the time sheets and I ended up sixth in second free practice. With the team, we made a plan to get the maximum out of the tyres we had available. In the first qualifying heat, I waited for some ten minutes before going out onto the track. I set a time that got me up in ninth place and I came back to the pits. Later on, I started another attempt and I was classified seventh. In the top twelve qualifying, I was in fifth place when the red flags came out. In the pits, I watched proceedings together with my team on the timing screens. I gradually dropped back to tenth place, which put me on pole position for the second race. That meant our strategy had worked. Hours later, at a totally unexpected moment and with nobody left to launch a protest, it turned out that there had been errors in the time-keeping. I lost one position and suddenly found myself back in eleventh place on the grid. It was an error that had big effects for me and totally unusual to have something like this in a world championship event. Anyway, I started eleventh and ended up seventh. On the final lap, after the safety car intervention, I still made up one place after Basseng had made a driving error. I had a good start into the second race, I even overtook Yvan Muller, but he took back his position quickly and after that, I had a trouble-free run, right behind the front-runners. In spite of the heat, the car ran fine and I didn't have any difficulties fighting with the drivers behind me. I looked for opportunities without taking unnecessary risks. That worked out well. I finished eighth and was the best-placed BMW driver in both races. On top of that, my car remained unscathed, which is fine, because the team has to load the container for the seafreight transport to the races in Argentina. We kept the damage limited and again scored a few points. That was all I could do," said Tom Coronel.

Video footage of Tom Coronel in the seventh weekend of the 2013 FIA WTCC can be watched HERE.

Result race 1: 1.Yvan Muller 12 laps in 27:38.637; 2. Tom Chilton +0.343; 3. Michel Nykjaer +0.665; 4. Pepe Oriola +1.318 (all Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T); Rob Huff (SEAT Leon WTCC) +2.493 and 7. Tom Coronel (ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC) +6.333.

Result race 2: 1.James Nash (Chevrolet Cruze 1.6 T) 11 laps in 23:41.247; 2. Rob Huff +5.624; 3. Michel Nykjaer +6.012; 4. Pepe Oriola +6.368; 5. Marc Basseng (SEAT Leon WTCC) +7.946 and 8. Tom Coronel (ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC) +9.805.

2013 FIA WTCC 2013 Calendar* 
Argentina August 3-4
USA September 07-08
Japan September 21-22
China November 02-03
Macau November 15-17
(*subject to change)