Brilliant start for Tiago Monteiro in France gets him his first podium of the season for the Portuguese driver

Tiago Monteiro had the best start to a WTCC season ever this weekend! The Portuguese driver was one of the main protagonists at the Paul Ricard circuit in France in the opening two races of the 2016 championship: fourth and second in two highly disputed events with plenty of action and incidents. Furthermore, he was consistently one of the fastest drivers on track all weekend and now sits in second place in the drivers’ championship battle.

In the first race, thanks to the reverse grid, Tiago started in ninth place and instantly began a remarkable drive with a very competitive Honda Civic at his disposal that allowed him to overtake a lot of cars and to reach an excellent fourth place: “We are better attuned and consistent and this result proves that, otherwise it would have been much more complicated to overcome. I was very satisfied at the end of the race, our lap times were exceptional and this clearly shows the excellent work that the team has been doing.”

Starting race two from the front row, the outlook was even more favorable. However, Tiago was surprised by Yvan Muller at the start and dropped a position back to third. Although faster, he lost a lot of time in recovering his starting grid position and by the time he made the move, there was only six laps remaining and three seconds to the leader. Not intimidated by the gap, Tiago proved that Honda has entered this season prepared to fight for both titles pushing the winner all the way to the chequered flag. “Unfortunately I was stuck for a long time early in the race. Had that not been the case, the story would have been quite different. After reaching second place again, I gave everything I had to gain some ground. On the last lap I tried to make the ultimate pass, I tried but I couldn’t do it. I would have needed one or two more laps to get the job done. It may not have been a victory, but it feels like one after everything that happened on track. The entire team is very happy with our performance this weekend and we are looking forward to continuing our fight for victories and both world titles.”

Overall this weekend was extremely positive for Tiago Monteiro who now occupies second place with 34 championship points, only 4 points behind first place. The next round will take place in two weeks time in Slovakia.