Best qualifying for Monteiro

MF1's Tiago Monteiro talks about qualifying at Indianapolis

"When I got on the track, I was convinced that Indianapolis was not going to be easy for our team. We would need to work hard all weekend to find a good balance and to get a good result."

Tiago Monteiro.

Photo by xpb.cc.

"I am a bit more confident today after our excellent qualifying. We have never been as close to our competitors as today. Our car is very well balanced, but it was quite a work to get there. On Friday, in the first practice, I finished in 11th position after one long run with a lap of 1m 15.091s, ahead of Christijan Albers in 1m 15.647s."

"On Friday, we decided not to drive too much to save my engine after the Canadian Grand Prix. About 10 drivers were only out for one or two laps because the track was dirty. I completed eight laps. In the afternoon the sunny weather was gone, and it was grey and overcast. Finally I did four runs."

"We worked in the direction we wanted, and when we found the set-up we were after today, we were one of the only teams to switch to new tyres. On these the balance was amazing! It felt like a different car; there was so much grip."

"I only did one lap on the new ones, as opposed to 20 laps on the old set, so obviously I hadn't used them as well as I should, and to be honest I thought there was going to me more to come out of them. I was right. I passed through to the second part of the qualifying knockout session for the second time of the season, with a lap of 1m 12.627s."

"Fifteenth place is my best qualifying performance of the 2006 season. I am so fantastically happy to have been able to make it again into the second knockout stage. And I feel that we had the potential to be even higher. I had two very good laps in qualifying but made a small error that lost me three-tenths. The tyres are good but they suffered a lot!"

"I hope everything will go well tomorrow for the race and that the temperature will not be too high. Overall, I think our result today shows how much the car has progressed."

"While all this was going on, Cristiano Ronaldo scored the last penalty for our football team and Portugal is now in the World Cup semi-final. What a day!"

-dca-