Photo: SEAT Sport

Monteiro motivated for new season

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Tiago Monteiro will start his third season in the World Touring Car Championship next week at Curitiba in Brazil. The former Formula 1 driver switched to the WTCC after losing his seat at Midland F1 after the 2006 season. Since his début in the World Touring Car Championship Monteiro has been driving for the works team of SEAT and managed to score two victories, both in 2008. This year the Portuguese driver will try to improve further.

In preparation of the new season Monteiro tested with SEAT at Valencia last week. Monteiro drove two days and covered 70 laps each day.

“We drove many kilometers in order to improve the car and we found some interesting solutions.”

Although SEAT doesn’t want to reveal which solutions they have found, Monteiro is positive about the outcome of the test and says the gathered data is very important.

The 32-year-old driver knows it will be hard to improve on last year because of the new rules for the diesels, but it still very confident.

“We know it will be hard to defend our title because of the new rules which are not really in our favor”, Monteiro said. “Therefore we will need to take the three first rounds to integrate the rules and we will see how to do that in the best possible way for our project.”

“It will be hard but I am optimistic. SEAT is a professional and extremely motivated team. In 2008, among other things, we always coped with having a heavier car. This year, I think we will be able to fight with the front runners even though it might not be the case in Brazil.”