Chilton’s first laps on the Nordschleife

ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton covered his first laps on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, in view of next year’s WTCC race meeting.

The young Englishman travelled to the Nürburgring following his team that took part in a round of the Blancpain GT Series.

Chilton discovered the Nordschleife while it was open to general public.

“I managed to get seven laps in two days,” he said. “It’s just amazing! There are 177corners and you have to know off each one by heart, as there is zero room for error! The trees and barriers feel very close and I loved racing around in my Ford Focus 1.6T road car at 230 kph. Only my first three laps were fully dry and I managed to set a lap time under 10 minutes, which I was happy with as a start point. Then the weather set in Saturday afternoon, with rain causing red flags one after another.”

On Sunday ROAL Motorsport team principal Roberto Ravaglia had planned to drive Chilton around the road course.

“We met at eight in the morning and I was eager to learn a lesson from Roberto, who had won there twice when he was a racing driver for BMW Motorsport. Sadly the fog was so thick that the officials would not let us out on the track… Now I plan to go back there between Suzuka and Macau to learn some more corners, because by the time being I can only remember 40% of the lap…”