ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton says that the reason for him enjoying his best qualifying session in this year’s World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) to-date is due to his team reverting back to their 2014 set-up data.
Chilton qualified in fifth position – equalling his best performance of the season so far, having made it through to Q3 for the second time this season.
The Brit believes that he has found extra pace in his car, having reverted to set-up data collected in 2014. In addition, thanks to the performances of Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente in the past three events, Chilton’s RML-built Chevrolet Cruze is just 20 kg lighter than the leading Citroëns according to the WTCC’s compensation weight system.
“It was a good lap and I’m very happy to be here,” said Chilton, who ended up over a second from pole. “Two of the three manufacturers ahead have less weight than me and the last three years the World Touring Cars have been here I’ve always been in the last qualifying session.
“We’ve had to make an awful lot of set-up changes on the car this weekend. At the beginning of the year we went down a path in winter testing, which led us astray because it was three degrees Celsius, so I’m slowly bringing it back to where it should be.
“When you go winter testing in Spain it starts off very cold in the morning and gets warmer in the middle of the day, but not as hot compared to the weather this weekend. If you actually put the correct set-up on, you’ll be slower than with the wrong set-up. We put the wrong set-up on to be faster in winter testing and thought ‘wow, we’ve gained 1.9 seconds, thinking this is amazing’.
“We’ve been changing everything back and now we’re going up the grid again. The first time we reverted closer towards last year’s set-up was in warm-up at the Nürburgring where I was P1 by two-and-a-half seconds. That’s when we realised what we had to do.”
The Brit is 20 kg heavier than the Honda of Gabriele Tarquini and 20 kg heavier than the LADA of Rub Huff ahead, and thus remained coy on his prospects of improving in Sunday’s races.
“It’s really tough because I’ve got 40 kilos of ballast and we’re not quite as well developed as these manufacturers,” added Chilton. “In the race it’s going to be extremely tough and it’s where you need to be clever because Gabriele’s team-mate and Rob’s team-mate [Nick Catsburg] are both at the right end of the grid to get a one-two finish in the second race.
“I will try my absolute best as always. I’m gutted a little bit I’m here because fifth and sixth position are probably the worst places to be but either way I’m happy to be here.”