WTCC
Valencia: Tiago Monteiro weekend summary
After the Triumph at Puebla, Disillusion at Valencia The weekends of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) go by one after the other, but they do not resemble one another to Tiago Monteiro. The Winner at Puebla in April, the Portuguese ...
Published: May 22, 2008, 11:58 AM
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After the Triumph at Puebla, Disillusion at Valencia
The weekends of the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) go by one after the other, but they do not resemble one another to Tiago Monteiro. The Winner at Puebla in April, the Portuguese driver returned from Valencia without a single point in his luggage. On the Ricardo Tormo circuit where he expected to suffer in overcoming a double handicap (32 kilograms of ballast and a limitation in the engine revolutions of the SEAT TDI under a new FIA directive) Tiago has experienced a series of incidents.
The first race had begun ideally after an excellent flying start which enabled Tiago to gain seven places and move up to 9th position. But when the SEAT Sport driver tried to move into the top eight (which would have enabled him to be well-positioned on the starting grid for the second race), James Thompson closed the door to him and made the SEAT Leon TDI No. 18 car lose several places. The track sanction was doubled by a penalty at the conference tables when the stewards ruled Tiago responsible for the collision and penalized him with thirty seconds, sending him to 18th place.
Curiously, the scenario in the second race was identical to that in the first. Tiago had skillfully moved up to 12th place before mid-race when Thomson once again knocked at the door at the nose of the Portuguese driver's SEAT Leon, damaging his front end. "It's upsetting that James Thomson had this conduct in the race, but that's his choice," Tiago declared, "I don't know why he decided that he could not let me pass him and the telemetry data can certainly prove that he braked early to surprise me. But more than anything I don't understand the criteria of the stewards."
Tiago found it particularly strange to be sanctioned for an overtaking mandated by the dock in the second race. "For all those who have seen or will see the images on television there is no doubt, in both cases it seems obvious to me that I was on the right trajectory, but what is more strange is that it's the driver whose car was damaged that was penalized. They say in the WTCC that a good weekend is followed by a disappointment. I hope that the tradition will hold true and I will have a good weekend at Pau."
The next stage of the WTCC will go through the streets of Pau (France) from May 31 to June 1.
-credit: tiagomonteiro.com
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