Monteiro disappointed in qualifying

Tiago Monteiro (Midland F1) will leave in 19th position on the grid for Bahrain, first Grand Prix of the season The 2006 FIA Formula One World Championship and race season opens Sunday, March 12 with the Bahrain Grand Prix and will conclude in eight months time in Brazil.

Tiago Monteiro.

Photo by Bridgestone Corporation.

Now, vacations and winter season for the F1 teams are over: the winter testing is over and the team presentations are also over. Now it is all back to new action: New engine rules, new rules on tires and new qualification sessions.

The new regulations impact directly on the format of qualifying. As opposed to the criticized recent years with a "one car and one lap only format", multiple cars with multiple laps on track are back for a better show to the public.

Note about Friday morning during practice session 1 results

During the one hour long session, Monteiro kept the top of the classification until dropping to 18th position after completing 14 laps and a time of 1.35.026.

"The session was very exciting. The conditions were very different from Friday with the wind coming from a different direction and a lot more sand being blown around. This meant we were finding that braking points had changed dramatically."

"It was very slippery and obviously I could see that our times would be affected by these new conditions as the car was harder to drive and had lots of understeer."

Details of the qualifying session today in Bahrain

Monteiro could not improve his morning time in the afternoon after a technical problem changing a wing during the first of the three new-format qualification session as 22 cars were still running.

"The problem occurred early in the session, right after Kimi Raikkonen's problem when he lost the back wing, touched the curb, spun and then the rear left wheel broke causing a red flag. I had noticed the problem on my car, and I decided to complete the whole first lap to at least secure a time."

"However, the time of my first lap was not as good as I hoped due to a defect in the wing adjuster that broke. The team tried to fix it. There was not much time to think about it all before the cars were out on the track again. So it did not work out for us as quickly as I hoped and we ran out of time to go for a real qualifying run. It would also not have been safe to go out again."

"I am very disappointed today. This result caused me to be one of the drivers to automatically fill one of the final six grid places as prescribed in the revised qualifying format. For sure there are week-ends where the qualifying format will be beneficial to the team. Today, it was not a lucky day for me."

"I just hope that this new format brought a better show to the spectators. I will leave in 19th position on the grid for Bahrain, first Grand Prix of the season. I am sure everyone will focus on having a good race tomorrow."

-dca-