Vila Real WTCC: Tom Coronel resists Tom Chilton for second 2016 win
Tom Coronel took a controlled victory in the first World Touring Car Championship race on the Vila Real streets, keeping Tom Chilton at bay for his second win of 2016
Having started the reversed-grid race from pole, Coronel made a strong getaway and managed his pace from there until the finish to claim the sixth win of his WTCC career.
As Dutchman Coronel pulled away well at the start in his ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze, Chilton jumped ahead of Lada's Nicky Catsburg with an impressive launch in his Sebastien Loeb Racing Citroen C-Elysee to snatch second.
Chilton looked the faster of the two in the early laps, particularly in the circuit's heavy braking zones, but with the tight confines providing few overtaking opportunities, Coronel's lead looked increasingly safe as the race wore on.
Coronel maintained a small but healthy advantage over the final few laps as the Yokohama tyres held up better than feared in the Portuguese heat, eventually crossing the line 0.597 seconds clear of Chilton.
A second victory of the season means Coronel is the only man aside from Citroen's Jose Maria Lopez to have multiple wins to his name in 2016, and also marked only the second time that Coronel has won two races in a year in the WTCC.
"Of course I felt the pressure," said Coronel of Chilton's chase.
"He's clever. He was strong in the braking zones where I was saving a little bit, but I didn't make any mistakes."
Catsburg hung on to claim third despite his brake pedal going long and his cooling system falling out two laps into the race, keeping Chilton's team-mate Mehdi Bennani and championship leader Lopez behind.
Rob Huff completed one of only a handful of overtakes in the race to clinch sixth, getting by Thed Bjork into the roundabout at the end of the penultimate lap.
Huff had attempted to line up the move earlier in the race, but got his best run coming off the Turn 19 right-hander and created a gap with his run down the hill before squeezing Bjork out.
Polestar driver Bjork came home seventh, having held off Huff's Honda team-mate Norbert Michelisz on the final lap, while Yvan Muller and race two polesitter Tiago Monteiro completed the points-scorers.
RESULTS - 13 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 26m11.089s |
2 | Tom Chilton | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 0.597s |
3 | Nicky Catsburg | LADA Sport | Lada | 2.626s |
4 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 3.145s |
5 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Racing | Citroen | 3.626s |
6 | Rob Huff | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 4.332s |
7 | Thed Bjork | Polestar Cyan Racing | Volvo | 5.155s |
8 | Norbert Michelisz | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 5.452s |
9 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Racing | Citroen | 7.411s |
10 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 8.054s |
11 | James Thompson | Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 9.711s |
12 | Gabriele Tarquini | LADA Sport | Lada | 15.602s |
13 | Robert Dahlgren | Polestar Cyan Racing | Volvo | 20.282s |
14 | Ferenc Ficza | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 30.555s |
15 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 32.774s |
16 | Gregoire Demoustier | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 33.218s |
17 | Daniel Nagy | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 1m07.844s |
- | Hugo Valente | LADA Sport | Lada | Retirement |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments