« Not too bad, isn’t it? » With some sense of understatement, 14-year-old Dutch racing driver Rocco Coronel talks about the second season round of the British Ginetta Junior Championship at Silverstone’s ‘National’ circuit. The Red Bull Junior won all three races in the R Racing team’s Ginetta, consolidating his position as the leader in the championship standings. With 196 points, Coronel now has a 47-point lead over his British teammate Alfie Slater.
After the season opener at Donington Park, where Coronel won two of the three races, Silverstone, the self-proclaimed ‘Home of British motor racing’, was a different experience for the young Dutch driver. « Donington has a lot of corners and elevation changes, while Silverstone is completely flat with long, fast sections. Slipstreaming is very important there, » Coronel noted. He had already been able to test there twice before, once in wet and once in dry conditions. During the race weekend, where the Ginetta Junior Championship again featured on the support bill of the of the British GT Championship, it was fully dry and the conditions were excellent.
Coronel was not at the top of the timesheets in the test sessions, but that was no cause for concern for him. « I was consistently around sixth or seventh place, but the drivers at the top had all used slipstreaming. That’s not allowed during qualifying, so I didn’t do it in the tests either as there was no point. At Silverstone, a slipstream can easily make a difference of one to one and a half seconds, so that explains the difference and I knew that the speed was there. We mainly worked on the set-up of the car: we lowered the front a little, we softened the shock absorbers and tried out different tyre pressures. »
In qualifying for the first race, Coronel posted the third fastest lap time, but he quickly gained a position in the race, after which he fought a great battle for the lead with Britain’s Fred Green. Coronel came out on top in that duel and went on to take the victory. He also set the fastest lap time of the race. In the second race, Coronel started from second place and felt the pressure from the competition behind him. ‘That group got bigger and bigger, eventually up to eight or nine cars, but I was able to drive well at the front and I was there to take the lead when Green spun at Luffield. He also hit me slightly in the process, but I kept the car under control and won the race,’ he reported. Coronel also took advantage of a restart after a safety car phase by immediately pulling a gap over his pursuers.
As the winner of the second race, Coronel started the final race from pole position and controlled the race from start to finish. The safety car was also deployed in this race and, just like in the previous encounter, Coronel was able to surprise his competitors at the restart, immediately building up a lead. « There was a lot going on behind me. The pursuers did get closer in the final stages, because they were able to take advantage of each other’s slipstream, while I was out there all on my own in the lead and didn’t have that advantage, but my lead was big enough to take the victory, » said Coronel, who once again set the fastest lap of the field with 25 participants.
With three victories and two extra points for the fastest lap, the Dutch Red Bull Junior achieved almost the maximum possible score during the race weekend in Northamptonshire. « That means I can go into the May holiday in good spirits, » he laughs. There is now also a break in the racing programme until the next round, which will take place from 24 to 26 May at Oulton Park. « And of course, after the holidays, I have to go back to school like any normal child, » laughs Coronel. « That’s part of it, but first I’m going to enjoy the holidays! »