Honda’s Tiago Monteiro: “We need more speed”

Tiago Monteiro finished sixth behind the Citroën top five lock-out in the first race in Marrakech, while he was eliminated early on in race two, and says a number of updates coming for Honda will be key to close the gap to the all-conquering French marque.

Monteiro ran in fifth in the early stages of the race one, but eventually lost that spot to Yvan Muller, who ensured all five Citroëns finished in the top five spots, with Monteiro having to defend against team-mate Gabriele Tarquini for sixth.

“Unfortunately that was the best we could have done,” said Monteiro to TouringCarTimes. “The car was not too bad actually, but we just don’t have enough pace. The feeling was OK, so I can’t say the car felt like a load of shit, we just need more speed.”

“In the second race I had a good start, but then (Norbert) Michelisz pushed Tom (Coronel) and Tom pushed me out, which is a shame as I think fourth was our realistic result which would have been good points overall so it’s really frustrating.”

Monteiro crossed the line almost 23 seconds behind the leading Citroën C-Elysée WTCC of José María López in race one, and says that the gap is far more than was anticipated even after qualifying.

“The Citroëns’ race pace was incredible, we were very surprised actually. We weren’t sure before, but now it’s clear they were hiding their pace in qualifying, because their real pace came up today, usually we are quite OK on race pace.”

From the next race, compensation weight comes into effect, which will see the Citroëns remain on 1,160kg while their competitors can drop up to 60kg depending upon their performance across the first two meetings, but Monteiro says the weight alone won’t make enough of a difference.

“60kg is not enough for what we need to recover. It’ll help, but it’s not enough. We do have a small engine update and we have a big aero-kit update coming, plus some race tracks that suit our car better,” he added.