Monteiro slowed by mechanical problems

Tiago Monteiro hoped for only one thing at this weekend at Shanghai, the finale of the 2005 championship and that was to know a weekend without incident in order to finish his rookie season of F1 in style. He already holds the record for the most amount of GP's finished in one season (17 to date) and 7 points in the drivers championship, together with a podium.

However, the Portuguese driver was the innocent victim of mechanical problems on the opening day of practice, which delayed his scheduled program and his attempts at learning his way around the Shanghai International Circuit.

"It is a very technical circuit and it was important that I get in as many laps as much as possible in order to learn this layout that was completely unknown to me and to be able to make a precise analysis of the behaviour of the car in the fast curves which require large aerodynamic downforce," explained Tiago.

"With Narain we recorded the slowest two times of the day, but I believe that they are not representative of our potential, given the problems we encountered. I think that we have the potential to be better placed in qualifying."

The problems that hit his Jordan EJ15B have not yet been identified by the engineers from the Silverstone squad, but they will need to find the solution during the final two practice sessions on Saturday, in order to have a good qualifying session and race.

Under these conditions, Tiago's lap times were nothing significant; but more worrying was the choice of tyres proved to be difficult as the Portuguese driver was unable to correctly evaluate the behaviour of the rubber placed at his disposal by Bridgestone.

"I am rather anxious because there is very little time remaining for us to correct the problem," continued Tiago. "It is the last GP of the season and it is important to finish the year with a good result, to help remember us by."

-dca-