Tom Chilton unhappy with “worst place on the grid” with sixth

ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Chilton was the top independent driver in qualifying and the fastest of the Chevrolet RML drivers in sixth, but the fastest Brit was not happy to miss the top five, starting from what he states is the worst position on the grid.

“I hate P6, P6 is the worst place on the grid to be, you get no points and you get no benefits from the reverse grid,” said a disappointed Chilton after qualifying.

Although those outside of the top ten would probably beg to differ, Chilton’s point reflects the fact that only the top five drivers score points in qualifying, while the four cars slower than him will start ahead of him on the grid for the reversed grid second race, which is likely to be the only chance for a non-Citroën-equipped driver to score victory tomorrow.

“We did a lot of set-up changes today and I progressed the car through the course of the weekend and I feel like it we’ve made really big (progress) today, to the point where I was 1.6 seconds faster than any other Chevrolet which is quite a big chunk; but I’m frustrated as we used three sets of tyres in Q1, which meant I only had one run effectively in Q2 and because of the red flag I effectively (had to do) my fastest lap on used tyres.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow, where the heat and humidity is set to continue at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit in northern Argentina, Chilton admits the team will need to make some changes to prepare for the conditions in the two 13 lap races.

“In qualifying on one lap on new tyres, the heat isn’t a problem, it’s the circuit that was the problem because it was very very dusty…which affected the performance of the car and the tyre, but tomorrow in the race the heat will then become a problem…we have to do a lot of set-up changes to make the car better for the race.”