Tom Chilton “gutted” after 12th place in qualifying

ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton was upset with his poor qualifying result, losing time on the only possible lap in Q2 at Eau Rouge and qualifying 12th.

“I’m absolutely gutted. In Q2, I knew that there was only one lap, and I went out there and got quite a lot of oversteer up over Eau Rouge,” said Chilton to TouringCarTimes.

“I didn’t hit the kerb, I literally touched the white line perfectly at the perfect angle, and then got oversteer for some reason. All I can think was that I didn’t heat the rears up enough on my outlap as I was trying to stay behind López to get a tow, and maybe concentrated too much on going slow to keep up with Lopez. The advantage is I gave my team-mate a really good tow and helped him get to eighth.

“I never got a chance to try new tyres at the end of Free Practice 2 as the driveshaft broke, so I couldn’t really see what the balance of the car was on new tyres before qualifying, so that’s really annoying.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s races, where Chilton will start 11th from race one, courtesy of Borkovic’s grid penalty for an engine change, and 12th for race two, Chilton’s optimistic that he can still have a good result on race day.

“Here you just don’t know what’s going to happen, as it’s very much dependent on the slipstream. I might get the best tow from where I’m starting. The first corner here is very tight, and even at the chicane at the end of the lap a lot can happen there, so it’s not the end of the world starting 12th but it’s not the best.”