Monteiro suffers from stiff neck

Tiago Monteiro qualifies 19th position for the Canadian Grand Prix. Monteiro said: "We had a rough start to the weekend on Friday. I was unlucky enough to hit the "Welcome Quebec" wall, the infamous Wall of Champions on the exit to the final corner that leads on to the main straight. I was fortunate not to damage the car more after I had lost control because of a little too much understeer."

"The mechanics had to spend quite a bit of working time in the second practice session to get me out again, and then had to have a late evening in order to check out all of the possible consequences and to prepare the car for qualifying today."

"I had a nice surprise this morning when I arrived at the track. The conditions were warmer right away. I finished in 18th position in the third and final free practice session, with a time of 1m 17.747s after 18 laps. The car had really good balance and potential. I was a bit worried because over the bumps this morning my neck felt stiff and sore, especially once I got out of the car."

"I had overstretched the tissues in one of my vertebrae over one of the numerous bumps, but there wasn't much I could do except to take a pain killer. This of course wasn't ideal to maintain my concentration and focus so that I could perform 100% in the car, but after eight laps in the first qualifying session my neck thankfully did not hurt too much."

"However, we were not able to repeat our deed at the British Grand Prix and go through to the second session. I knew it would be difficult to do that here this weekend. This isn't the best kind of circuit for our car, so I can't say I'm surprised by the result. But looking at the times, we improved to 1m 17.121s and also I finished ahead of my team-mate Albers despite our Bridgestone tires being very worn out."

"We did two timed laps in qualifying, and my second run was looking pretty good through the first two sectors - I was six-tenths up. I am really surprised how close we are to the Red Bull Racing, Toro Rosso or even Mark Webber's Williams. I hope the race will go well, and that I don't suffer too much from my stiff neck.

-dca-