Tom Chilton happy with seventh after qualifying scare

RML’s Tom Chilton is happy to have made it into Q2 and qualified in seventh on the grid in Macau, after his team had a race against time to repair his car following a heavy off at Paiol in the second free practice session.

The 28-year-old crashed out at the start of the second free practice session, leaving the team with a little under three hours to get the car repaired for qualifying, damaging all four corners of the car.

“I’m very sore. It’s probably the second biggest shunt I’ve had,” said Chilton to TouringCarTimes.

“I didn’t think I was going to get out, nearly every part on the car is brand new. After my first run out of the box in Q1 I realised the rear wing was falling off which was why I was so slow on the fast stuff because I was oversteering through it. Luckily there was a red flag and they bolted a new rear wing on.”

Chilton’s team-mate Yvan Muller took pole position with a new lap record at the Guia circuit, while the British driver was content with his seventh place given the condition of his car after the impact in FP2. The team have been working from the data last year, when then driver Rob Huff took pole position with the first sub 2m30 lap at the track, which was bettered today by Muller by half a second.

“We’ve been pushing ourselves very very hard, I pushed too hard and I completely totalled the car,” he added. “There’s one corner where Rob (Huff’s) very quick out the back and I though I can do that, and boof, all the wheels are hanging off the car.

“I’m so fortunate they got the car ready because if I hadn’t got into qualifying I’d be looking at fourth, possibly even fifth in the championship, whereas at the moment, second might still be on but realistically I’ve got to concentrate on keeping (James) Nash within one place of me in both races.”