Tom Coronel described his opening race in TCR Europe at Oschersleben as being ‘in no-man’s land’ after the Dutchman initially finished in fourth on the road, later becoming second when penalties were handed out to the race winner and second-placed finisher.
Having a small gap to the leading group as well as a comfortable gap to the cars behind, Boutsen Ginion Racing’s Tom Coronel experienced a rather uneventful race on his way to securing fourth position.
With the Honda driver being unable to chase the leading pack to fight for positions, he enjoyed his time in ‘no-man’s-land’ which had the advantage to avoid clashes.
Overtaking is notoriously difficult on the narrow track of Oschersleben, and Coronel described his race to TouringCars.Net as being ‘boring’.
“[It was] boring, to be honest,” said Coronel. “I was in the middle of everything. I had a good start and knew that the first corner would be a risky one which was underlined when Panciatici was handed a drive-through penalty.
“That’s a pity, thus I finished in third. Overall, I was in no-man’s-land with four and a half seconds to the pack chasing me as well as one and a half seconds to the guys in front of me. I couldn’t catch them.
“At the end of the race, I was able to slightly reduce the gap. Apart from me, doing mistakes myself, I guess I was missing out between three to five laps to be able to really close this gap.”
After the post-race drama where race winner Andreas Bäckman was disqualified and Nelson Panciatici handed a 30-second time penalty, the 47-year-old was promoted to second in front of Josh Files in third.
The Honda Civic Type R driver added: “For now this is my best result. It’s a pity we couldn’t go on the podium. But that is my plan for tomorrow.”