Monteiro prepares for hard combat

Tiago Monteiro prepares for hard combat

The probabilities that rain will fall on the German GP this afternoon have diminished drastically, despite the fact that Jordan driver Tiago Monteiro hopes for wet weather as he knows that a damp track could level the playing field and assist some of the weaknesses of the Bridgestone tyres on board his EJ15.

Tiago Monteiro.

Photo by xpb.cc.

The Portuguese driver finished qualifying day down in 18th place, not a very satisfactory place to be. Tiago and his race engineer spent the last two says attempting to find a suitable set-up for his yellow single-seater, but failed to do so, despite a few small improvements.

The icing on the cake was that Tiago came across the Minardi of Christijan Albers on track when he went out to qualify, the Dutch driver on his warm down lap at the time. Therefore, Tiago did not find the ideal line and hence lost concentration.

"We encountered a few problems at the time of the two practice sessions in the morning and we thought they were engine related. After examination, however, Toyota dismissed this assumption. Despite all our efforts to improve the behavior of the car, it was slower in a straight line, which is rather strange," he explained.

"However, the car was a little better in qualifying, and was behaving better, apart from a small error that caught me out in turn 3. I was then surprised to find the Minardi of Albers in my way, which caused me to lift off, irritating me because I lost concentration. "

Tiago will start from the ninth row of the grid alongside his former teammate and ex 3rd driver at Jordan, Robert Doornbos. "I think that the tyres we chose are harder and our car is heavier on fuel than the Minardi, which means to say the we will probably spend more time on track before the first pit stops."

"It remains to be seen if the data collected on Saturday will enable us to find the root of the problem that is slowing me down on the straights, because it is a major disadvantage on a circuit like Hockenheim."

-dca-