Two weeks after his impressive first victory of this years FIA World Touring Car Championship in front of his home crowd in Portimao, Tiago Monteiro is hoping for another impressive performance this weekend, to improve on his 5th place in the Championship. Brands Hatch is a circuit that Monteiro should know well, as he has had several good performances at the circuit in his carrer, especially last year.
“Brands Hatch is an interesting but demanding circuit, especially for tyres,” said Monteiro, “But this aspect of the race does not alter our motivation which is huge, especially after such a special win in front of my home crowd. It is hard to set ourselves some aims before the start of practice because we know the ballast will be a big burden for us in Brands Hatch, but in general we would like to be able to find a solution to all the problems we could have and to be able to secure the maximum amount of points. I am confident because the team is doing an outstanding job lately and we’ve been able to reduce and even close the gap with several rivals.”
SEAT Leon TDI’s number 3 driver is having a great season, currently running 5th in the Championship, only 4 points behind 4th place man Rob Huff. He is one of SEAT’s better performers, with only Gabrielli Tarquini ahead of him in the Championship. However Monteiro is keen to point out that the Championship is still pretty wide open.
“The battle for the championship is very tight and there are still 6 race weekends which means 12 races on the calendar. There are many points left to grab and the most important factor is to be constantly at a high level. If a podium or a win is within our reach, that’s all good of course, but the main thing is to bring back some good points. In Brands Hatch like anywhere else, it will be important to get into the Top 10 in qualifying.”
