Tom Chilton says wet weather testing paid off in Hungary washout

After a tough start to the year, Sébastien Loeb Racing’s Tom Chilton scored his best results of the season in the two races at the Hungaroring, with second overall in the opening race, followed by fifth overall and an independents’ class win in the main race, maximising the performance of the team’s Citroën C-Elysée WTCC in the wet.

The 31-year-old, who also celebrated his 100th WTCC race on Sunday afternoon, scored his best result since Japan 2014 in the opening race, opting for wet tyres in the mixed conditions at the circuit, which proved to be the right call as he moved forwards, passing Volvo’s Thed Björk and Lada’s Nicky Catsburg to grab second, finishing behind team-mate Mehdi Bennani, securing SLR’s first 1-2 finish in the championship.

“It was a really good weekend for me,” said Chilton to TouringCarTimes. “All of my testing and Citroen Racing’s testing, all five cars, was all in the wet. So when we were driving around Magny-Cours in the snow thinking why don’t we just go to the pub and have a beer, this has proved why, as we were bloody quick in the wet.

In race two, Chilton again made progress in the even wetter conditions and grabbed fifth, the best-placed independent, but rued not adapting his set-up more inbetween the races.

“I reckon we’d have been another second a lap if we’d made the right changes to the car,” he said. “I think we were so confident with the car in first race that I didn’t want to change anything.”

With a second and first in the independents’ classification, Chilton now leaps to second in the standings behind team-mate Bennani, and ahead of former ROAL Motorsport team-mate Tom Coronel in the classification heading to Bennani’s home race in two weeks’ time.

“I’m really happy,” added Chilton. “This car’s just really hard to drive and it’s taking a long time, but I feel like I’m getting there now, so roll on Marrakech.”