Ups and downs for Honda in Portugal

Castrol Honda Racing had a FIA World Touring Car Championship weekend in Portugal with ups and downs as Gabriele Tarquini secured a podium finish while Tiago Monteiro retired at the start of the second race.

“I’m happy for Gabriele but of course sad for Tiago. Again we showed the great race pace that we have had throughout. It’s been a difficult weekend on a difficult track but good performances from the team,” said Alessandro Mariani, Managing Director JAS Motorsport.

Monteiro was eliminated after a first-corner incident with Lada driver Jaap Van Lagen, resulting in major damage to his Honda Civic.

”I’m ok, bit of a headache and my foot got stuck between the pedals but otherwise I am fine. I got a very good start, perhaps that was the problem, but I went for the gap between the two Ladas because they were slower off the line,” said Monteiro.

”Unfortunately they then started to move across in the same direction but it’s one of those things – it’s a street track with not much room. I was too deep in to back off but I thought maybe it would just be a little touch; unfortunately it was harder than that and we had wheel-to-wheel contact which broke my right wheel and that was it.”

The highlight for the team came in the second race with Tarquini finishing on the podium in third position.

”My car was very good across both races, probably the best all season. I was pushing hard and was lucky on the second start because of the big crash with Tiago and Van Lagen – I was following his [Monteiro’s] line but because of that incident there was suddenly room for me to go through. I had the pace to attack Catsburg at the restart so went for third. I was really attacking left, right, outside, inside and eventually got it,” said Tarquini.

The Honda duo is sixth and seventh respectively with Tarquini on 138 points and Monteiro on 124 points, trailing championship leader José María López by 184 and 198 points respectively.