Coronel had first test in the Cruze

Tom Coronel had his first outing at the wheel of his Chevrolet RML Cruze TC1 car during the ROAL Motorsport test at Adria International Raceway.

The team was welcomed by sunny weather with temperatures up to 20 degrees Celsius. Coronel’s team-mate Tom Chilton continued to develop the RML-built car, following the test he had completed at Valencia a couple of weeks ago; the Briton was able to cover nearly 400 kilometres around the 2.7-km Italian track.

At the same time Coronel moved the first steps in the new car.

“It was more a shake down with my race engine and I ran for less than 100 kilometres, with a lot of out-in laps. I would liked to have done more, because this is not enough with a new car. But the goal was to test the power, and the power is there! I was a bit concerned about managing the front-wheel-drive again after three years in the BMW. The feeling was good, though I don’t have an idea about the front tyre wear over the race distance. RML did a brilliant job with the basic set-up and I was very impressed by the way the aerodynamics works. It generates a real downforce, something you can compare to a Le Mans prototype. Which is unusual in a touring car. Now I’m going to Marrakech with more confidence that I expected…” said the Dutchman.