Tom Coronel to miss the rest of the weekend after practice smash

ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel will miss the rest of the weekend after heavy damage sustained to the front of his Chevrolet RML Cruze in Free Practice 1 at Vila Real, when the Dutchman collided with a fire truck in the final sector of the lap.

Coronel lost control of the car and careered down the escape road at Turn 22, with the front-left wheel of his car coming loose just before he hit a support vehicle.

The driver of the truck was uninjured, while Coronel was also quickly out of his car. The Italian ROAL team have assessed the damage and ruled the car out from competition for the rest of the weekend.

“My left-front wheel was off before I hit the kerb,” said Coronel to TouringCarTimes.

“After that I just couldn’t stop the car. You can see all the bolts are broken. I already had tremendous understeer at all the right-hand corners right before it happened.”

The team will repair the car at fellow Chevolet competitor Campos Racing’s base ahead of the car’s being shipped to Argentina for the next round of the championship at Termas de Río Hondo.