Coronel closes in on Porteiro

WTCC driver Tom Coronel has narrowed down the gap to Felix Porteiro in the fight for the independents title. The Dutchman scored two second places in the independents class, while championship leader Porteiro finished both races in fourth. Stefano D’Aste and Tom Boardman took victory in race one and two.

Coronel was quite happy with his performance over the weekend. “All in all it was a great weekend for me”, he said.

“Of course I would have liked to be in the top 10 qualifying session, but we just missed out on that. Free practice was OK, especially when considering that we were using old tyres.

“Unfortunately I made a mistake in my last outting in qualifying, so that kept me from the Q2 session. At the start of the first race I just said to myself ‘Take care, watch where they are going and try to get to the inside of the corner.’

“It proved to be a wise move as several cars hit each other a few seconds later. I saw the underside of Porteiro’s car next to me and both in the front and on the other side I hit other cars. Fortunately the damage was restricted to just a bent steering rod.

“In the remainder of the race I was fighting with Stefano D’Aste. He benefited from an overtaking move of Augusto Farfus. He is fighting for the overall championship, so I let him go by. However D’Aste managed to get by as well. Fortunately he is not that high in the Independent rankings, so I decided not to take any further risks and settled for second in the Independents.

“In the second race I had a bad start and I was immediately overtaken by my teammate Tom Boardman. He was racing in front of his home crowd and in the opening stages he was just quicker.

“Behind me some more people were closing up with whom I was fighting for the rest of the race. It was clean and competitive racing in which sometimes a bit of contact was made, but never more than that.

“Everybody respected each other and that always gives the best fights on the track.

“Also in this race I went for the Independents points. Tom Boardman took the privateer win and I was second, so again I gained some points on Porteiro. Looking back I can only conclude that I took most of the Independent points this weekend.”

Tom Coronel in now 16 points behind on Felix Porteiro, who leads with 145 points. Franz Engstler hangs on to third with 104 points. Stefano D’Aste is fourth, 15 points behind Engstler.