Monteiro improves his record

Tiago Monteiro crossed the finish line on the Silverstone circuit to record the eleventh consecutive finish in his debut F1 season, extending his already very impressive record. Add a remarkable third placed finish to his achievements this year and other rookies will be left with a record that will be very hard to beat.

Tiago Monteiro.

Photo by xpb.cc.

In fact, reliability was a strong factor in Sunday's British Grand Prix with just one driver failing to cross the finish line, his Jordan teammate, Narain Karthikeyan.

Starting from the back of the grid due to an engine failure in his EJ15 earlier in the weekend, Tiago successfully fulfilled his mission by finishing the race in 17th place.

"After getting off to a problem free start to the race, I succeeded in carrying out a good rhythm and managed to get past Karthikeyan when my car became a little lighter," he said.

"My race strategy was different to that of Narain and even if it can't be seen from the outside, the physical effort necessary to finish a race is very intense when the car is so heavy at the start and therefore it is necessary to find the limit and record some good lap times. It is practically impossible to better do with this car, even if the final result, 17th place, can appear frustrating."

The Portuguese driver has therefore extended his record of GP finishes to 11 from 11, a 100% reliability rate, a statistic which will be very difficult for the next F1 rookie to beat.

"The next rookies in F1 will have to do even better. I beat Jackie Stewart's record, one of the icons of motor racing, which went back 40 years!" Tiago smiled.

Tiago will be busy at the Circuit Paul Ricard this week behind the wheel of the new Jordan Toyota EJ15B, in order to fine tune the car's settings ahead of what should be its race debut at Hockenheim in two weeks time.

-dca-