Photo by: Brad Fox
After the race, Coronel said: “Sonoma is a very particular track and as we had never raced here before, every lap was important. In practice, things went wrong for me. I was driving behind my team mate and he wanted to let me pass in an acceleration zone in order to slot in behind me. Due to a communication error, I didn’t understand that and I ran into the back of his car at full speed. The front end of my car was massively damaged and I had to go back into the pits right away. This cost me valuable practice time in which I wanted to get to know the track better. I lost more than half an hour, time you certainly can’t do without at a challenging track like this.”
“In qualifying, things started well and I was eighth or ninth. Then, the red flag was out and I had to start all over again. I had only six minutes left to improve my time. I took a fresh set of tyres, did one warm-up lap and then wanted to go for it. However, I spun and I was 20th.”
“In warm-up, I finally got the feeling for the circuit. Right after the start of the first race, many things went wrong for the drivers in front of me. There were cars going off all over the place and I had to be very careful not to be hit by any of the swerving cars. I made it through and was in the top ten quickly. After that, I had a fight with Bennani and we made contact. I spun myself, too, but soon was back in control again, and with a good result on top of that.”
“The standing start of race two also went well and I made up some positions right away. This time, I had a good fight with Tiago Monteiro, but I also came off tha track. After that, overtaking was the only thing to do for me. I overtook one driver after another. Every time, I closed the gap under braking into the corners and passed them quite easily. Thus, I moved up from 20th to fifth. Considering that, and had I been a little bit further up on the grid, a podium finish would have been possible. This is our goal for the upcoming races in Japan. For that weekend, we now have a couple of fresh tyres left and with these, I hope to go for it like in the old days!”
Source: Roal Motorsport
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