Tom Coronel surprised himself with front row qualifying in Budapest

Tom Coronel qualified the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze on the front row for tomorrow’s main race at the Hungaroring after a stunning lap in the one-lap shootout, matching his career best achievement from Moscow 2013, and says he’s excited by the achievement.

“I’m more than happy,” said Coronel to TouringCarTimes. “Nobody expected this, not myself, not the team. We’re working very well, Pietro (Speronello, engineer) and me with the car, and we’ve had no problems. I always used to have problem here with wheel-spin and the grip at the corner exit, but now there’s none.”

On his qualifying lap, the Dutchman remarked he took the first sector too conservatively, although pole was out of reach with Citroën’s José María López a further half a second up the road, it was key to helping him finish ahead of the two factory Hondas.

“I was a little bit too careful in the first sector, then I thought I’d only be P4 or P5 at the worst, so I pushed a little harder,” he said. “But I overdrove it into Turn 6 and got oversteer, but then with the new tyres when I pointed the car towards the corner the grip was there.

“I took more risks than usual as I knew this was a moment of fame. When they told me I was faster than the Volvo I thought, OK I’ll be P4, so I’m surprised to be in front of the Hondas.”

After putting the RML-build Chevrolet in the top five in qualifying in France, the independent driver was at a loss to explain the lack of pace last week, except to put it down to the nature of the circuit.

“In France we were good in qualifying, and last week in Slovakia we were nowhere, which was strange. I think it was as I was on full downforce in Paul Ricard and I’m full downforce here. So Nordschleife will be shit for us, but street circuits will be good like Marrakech and Vila Real.”