26/10/2023
🇪🇸 Tom Coronel is TCR Europe champion: In a thrilling TCR Europe finale at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Tom Coronel in the Audi RS 3 LMS won the drivers classification ahead of four other Audi privateers. They are all his teammates, but this did not mean that the veteran from the Netherlands was given anything as a gift. On the contrary: Kobe Pauwels overtook Coronel, who had started from pole position, from second place on the grid in the first race and celebrated his sixth victory of the season with a margin of just nine tenths of a second. The Belgian thus moved to within eight points of championship leader Coronel. With Pauwels ahead of Coronel, John Filippi and Nicola Baldan, the Audi customer team Comtoyou Racing even managed a 1-2-3-4 victory in this race. In the second race, John Filippi crossed the finish line as the best Audi driver in second place. Tom Coronel, who started from tenth place on the grid, finished in fourth place to win the title. The Dutchman, who is already contesting his 34th motor racing season and has been a loyal Audi customer for many years, became the third driver of an Audi RS 3 LMS to win the TCR Europe. In 2020, Moroccan Mehdi Bennani had succeeded in doing so, and last year it was Argentinean Franco Girolami. All three drivers competed for Jean-Michel Baert’s Comtoyou Racing team. In addition to the first five positions in the drivers standings this year, the Belgian team also won the first two places in the team standings, the Rookies classification with Kobe Pauwels and the Diamond Trophy with Tom Coronel. The success of Tom Coronel, who is so popular with the fans, is already the 31st TCR title of a driver worldwide with an Audi RS 3 LMS.
📸: TCR Europe
