Photo: Jacques Letihon Photographe

Tom Coronel puts Zolder success to manual starts in the Honda

Tom Coronel has had a perfect score from his weekend at Zolder so far with three race victories in the Boutsen Ginion Honda Civic, and puts part of his success in Sunday’s two sprint races down to not using the Honda’s highly rated starting system.

Coronel dropped a spot at the start to the Peugeot 308 of Kevin Abbring, with the Peugeot perhaps the only TCR car known to have better starts than the Hondas, while Coronel fended off the Volkswagen Golf of Belgian Maxime Potty down into Turn 1.

“I had a little bit too much wheelspin, so I chose to let Kevin (Abbring, Peugeot) go and not the Golf,” said Coronel to TouringCarTimes. “The Golf was the biggest opposition, as I knew that Kevin was going to have big problems after a few laps.”

Coronel overtook Abbring on lap three and went on to win the race, while in Race 2 he led the whole way from start to finish, initially fighting off Potty’s WRT Volkswagen before pulling out a margin, scooping 50 points in both his and co-driver Benjamin Lessennes’ title battle.

“In Race 2 I also did a good start,” added Coronel. “I did everything manual and didn’t use any system. I said forget all these systems, you can only use these things if you test a lot.”

“The Golf was a lot faster in the first part of the circuit but I had good traction in the third sector.”

Coronel is now up to third in the drivers’ standings, 42 points behind points leader Guillaume Mondron, with co-driver Lessennes just two behind Mondron heading into this afternoon’s two sprint races.

Coronel is however set to miss the next round of the championship, again at Zolder, in July due to clashing commitments in the World Touring Car Championship.