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Brno 2002

Eurosport Super Racing Weekends

19/05/2002

20/05/2002

Coronels view of Brno

Tom Coronel up with the leaders in ETCC

The third round of the LG FIA European Touringcar Championship was held at the Masaryk track near Brno in the Czech Republic. For Tom Coronel and the Carly Motors-Team Isert squad it had to be a change-of-fortune weekend. After spending many hours in the workshop tuner Carly Pellinkhof brought some extra horsepower to Brno to feed the hungry BMWs. For Dutch driver Tom Coronel this resulted in a tenth place in qualifying, but more importantly, the gap to the dominating Alfas was reduced to just several tenths of a second. Team-mates Peter Kox and Gianni Morbidelli lined up behind Tom in twelfth and fourteenth place.

In the warm-up I even was the fastest BMW in the field, which means that we closed in to the leaders. For the next race we will try to improve the setup, because I think we can gain a lot in this area. With the extra horsepower we were able to fight with the others in the field.

Unfortunately I was caught out in one of those fights and was bumped off track for a moment. I had to sit out two laps to clean my tyres from the sand and the marbles that I picked up", Tom Coronel said. After that Tom had set his sight on fellow BMW driver Jordi Gene from Spain.

"After I passed him there was nothing left to fight for and I finished in twelfth place", Coronel analysed the second part of the opening race at Brno.

The start of the second race went according to plan for Coronel. "I turned a bit to the right immediately after the green light and moved up into ninth place. Despite the scrambling for position I managed to win another two places right after that. In the heat of the battle I touched the car of my team-mate Peter Kox. Unfortunately it made an end to his race. As for me I continued for two laps to see if the wheels and the suspension were damaged. Everything appeared to be OK so I could rejoin the fight with Rickard Rydell(Volvo), Tommy Rustad (Nissan) and Fredrik Ekblom (BMW). I had to let go on Rydell, but the fight with Rustad was great!

Once every while we were pushing each other a bit but it was never unfair. We both gave each other just enough breathing space, but really not more than that. When the clutch failed on Rustand's car the battle was over and despite some under steer in the latter stages of the race Tom Coronel finished in a fine eighth place, his best result so far this year.

Previewing the next round at Jarama in two weeks time Coronel said: "We are able to take on the battle now with the improved engine. The next weeks we will also try to improve the setup. We will race at Jarama next week, a track that I really like, so let's hope we can pick up our first points there."

Tom Coronel is supported in the FIA European Touringcar Championship by Apex, Seiko, Bertelli and McGregor.