Photo: WTCC Media

Tom Chilton says focus was the key to his first win of 2017

By

Tom Chilton picked up Citroën’s only win of the year so far in the World Touring Car Championship at Monza, fending off the rival C-Elysée of Rob Huff to win the reversed grid opening race at the weekend, and says he had to dig deep and focus to keep Huff’s car at bay.

The 32-year-old Brit was running in second at the start of the race, before Norbert Michelisz blasted past his Sébastien Loeb Racing-run Citroën and chased down his team-mate Mehdi Bennani, but as the two collided on lap three, that gifted Chilton the lead, which he converted into his fifth career win.

“At the beginning of the race, Mehdi made a little mistake going into Parabolica, so I ended up getting a bad run and I was slipstreamed and overtaken so easily by Michelisz,” said Chilton to TouringCarTimes. “So I had to be so careful when Huffy was closing in. I realised I needed to be focussed on where I’m meant to be strong, and where I needed to be strong was out of Parabolica.

“Huffy hit me at the rear once there and I was particularly slow through that corner as I had chronic understeer, but that was OK, as it made me good everywhere else.”

Chilton was in the best seat in the house to watch the fight between Michelisz and Bennani for the lead, as they both collided at Parabolica and handed him the lead.

“I was catching them and I was ready to hook right to go up the inside of one of them,” said Chilton. “Michelisz braked at a sensible point, and then popped out, but I think he popped out so quickly I don’t think Mehdi saw him and started turning in on him and then they touched wheels, and when they touched wheels that sent them both left. I couldn’t believe it, so I just tightened up my seatbelts and thought – right, every lap now is a qualifying lap.”

Chilton held off Huff to take his fifth win, his second since joining the Sébastien Loeb Racing team, but a technical issue put him out of Race 2, which saw him drop to joint-fifth in the standings, and to second in the independents’ classification, one point behind Rob Huff.