– First World Championship points
– Second and third place in privateers’ classification
Eemnes, April 3, 2016 – At the 3.841 kilometres long Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet in the south of France, the 2016 FIA World Touring Car Championship season got underway this weekend.
Tom Coronel competed with a fully rebuilt Chevrolet Cruze, run by ROAL Motorsport. In every aspect, the car is better than the version the Dutchman raced last year. The Dutch driver showed a strong performance and claimed seventh place on the grid for race one. Having made it into the top 5 in third qualifying, Coronel was allowed to start fourth on the grid for race 2.
The opening race saw nice and entertaining battles throughout the field and Coronel ranked between sixth and seventh place for a long time. Contact in the closing stages forced him to drop back to ninth. Then, Coronel couldn’t make much of his good starting grid position for the second race as he had a poor getaway. The yellow Cruze dropped to the back of the field, but fighting for every inch of asphalt, Tom Coronel still managed to make it back to finish eleventh. The Dutchman has scored his first world championship points of the season, but even more important is the fact that he is able to fight again, which is promising for the remainder of the season.
“Now that was some really cool racing,