Front splitter caused Monteiro’s crash in Hungary

Tiago Monteiro leaves the Hungaroring with no extra points on the board after his front splitter came off early in race one eliminating him from the race, with the team fighting to give him a repaired car to compete with in race two from the back of the grid.

Monteiro had qualified in fourth position for the first race alongside team-mate Gabriele Tarquini, but had dropped outside the top ten by end of the first lap after a knock from Tom Coronel’s ROAL Motorsport BMW in Turn 2.

Whilst the Portuguese driver was preparing to fight his way back up the order, his front splitter broke off on the main straight ahead of the first corner, which saw the Honda Civic plough into the tyre barrier.

“My splitter came off, I don’t know why as I don’t remember touching anybody and it came off on the straight and it touched my tyre which is the reason why I couldn’t turn or brake,” said Monteiro to TouringCarTimes.

“In race two the guys did a miracle because the chassis was really in a bad state. The whole front of the car was destroyed and they had an hour to repair everything which they managed, the whole team including Gabriele’s guys worked on it and did a brilliant job.

“It looked like we could go on the grid, but at the last minute there was a water system failure and we needed to check the pressure again so unfortunately I started from the pits.

“After that I pushed as hard as I could to come back, had some fun overtaking a lot of guys…unfortunately not enough to score points so very frustrating in the end.”

After a tough weekend at Hungary as well as a no score weekend in Marrakech, Monteiro slips to joint-tenth in the drivers’ standings tied with Zengõ Motorsport’s Norbert Michelisz on 48 points.