He then moved up to 6th in race two before crashing his new black SEAT Leon out of contention.
This was Forton driver Tom's third appearance at Pau – the famous 1.7 mile street circuit in the south-west corner of France, which has remained unchanged since 1933.
Situated in the shadow of the Pyrenees, this race is to touring cars what the Monaco Grand Prix is to Formula 1, and it's one of Tom's favourite tracks on the WTCC tour.
Driving his SUNRED Engineering entered and www.clubseat.co.uk supported ex- Darren Turner Leon for the first time, the 25-year old set 9th and 11th fastest times (out of 26) in the two free practice sessions.
He was optimistic of a good qualifying run, but as he was about to start his second flying lap, Tom clipped a kerb and brushed against a wall.
He managed to get the car back to the pits, but the damage meant his qualifying was over. Determined not to be disheartened, Tom started 24th and finished a magnificent 10th on race one – just 12.9 seconds behind Tom Coronel (SEAT), who had started 18 places ahead of him from sixth.
This was a truly extraordinary performance on a tight and twisty circuit that is notoriously difficult to overtake on. Normally, Tom would have started race two from where he finished race one, but two drivers who had finished ahead of him were having problems.
Firstly, Coronel failed to start race two, meaning Tom moved up one place on the grid to start from 9th. Then Felix Porteiro (BMW) was excluded from race one, but significantly only after race two had finished.
This saw Tom retrospectively classified 9th in the race one results, but had Porteiro been excluded before race two had started, Tom may well have started race two from pole, as the top eight start in reserve order.
In the opening lap of race two, Tom climbed from 9th to 6th before sliding into the crash barriers, forcing him out of the race with broken suspension.