Tom Coronel delighted with performance, but rules out podium

Tom Coronel qualified in fifth position for the first race at Macau this weekend in his Chevrolet RML Cruze, though missed the chance to qualify even higher after a mistake on his run in the top five shootout.

The Dutchman, who’s celebrating his 25th year in motorsport with a special livery this weekend, broke into the top five for only the second time this season, despite not featuring near the top of the time sheets throughout practice, and was at least delighted with his pace, despite a mistake on the way up the hill where he clipped the front-left wheel of his ROAL Motorsport-run car.

“I did what I had to do, (unfortunately) I clipped the wall on the exit,” said Coronel to TouringCarTimes. “I went very early full throttle, and I just missed it by two centimetres. I was up two-and-a-half tenths in the first sector, Mandarin was fast, and through Lisboa, it was everything or nothing – we knew it’s either P4 or P5, so I told the team and they said go for it.”

Although certainly not the most experienced driver on the grid at Macau, that honour belongs to TC2T pole-sitter Franz Engstler who’s racing at the Guia circuit for the 26th time this weekend, Coronel is a veteran at the circuit, who’s nearly tasted the victory champagne before, but admits it would be almost impossible to achieve that tomorrow.

“I’ve been here 15 times. In Formula 3 I was leading here by 3.4 seconds with two laps to go and I crashed in Mandarin as I was too busy looking in my mirrors looking at my lead,” said Coronel.

“To be honest, I don’t want to be P5, I want to be P9 or P10, so I’m not happy at all, I was too fast,” said Coronel, referring to the reversed top ten grid for race two. “It’s disappointing to be too fast. The chances to be on the podium are now gone. But when you qualify P9 or P10, (in race two) you have a chance, but we took our moment of fame in qualifying.”