Photo: WTCC Media

Tiago Monteiro hoping for new SEAT engine soon

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Tiago Monteiro qualified 11th on the grid for both of tomorrow’s WTCC races, now running with the SUNRED 1.6 turbo engine as he ran for most of last season, but hopes to get his hands on the new SEAT engine as soon as possible.

Monteiro and two of his SUNRED team-mates Andrea Barlesi and Fernando Monje are all running the SR León 1.6T package this weekend, but all three were well down in the speed traps, with Monteiro the fastest SUNRED on the start/finish straight speed trap but 11th overall, with Oriola setting the second highest speed.

“It’s not the improvement we were hoping for. Last year I was P4, less than a tenth away from Gabriele (Tarquini) and now I’m 1.1 seconds off,” said Monteiro.

“It’s good because we have a direct comparison with Oriola, and it’s more than a second just in the straight lines. It’s frustrating, but having said that to be close to the top ten was actually better than we expected when we saw the times from this morning.”

“We have to work on the engine and try to see what we can do with this engine whilst we wait for the SEAT engine. We are actually a little bit better than last year compared to our data, but everyone else has improved a lot and we are…exactly the same as last year really.”

“There will be some development before Marrakech but not on track, but after Marrakech if (the SEAT engine) is not ready yet we’ll have some testing.”

SEAT Sport Director Jaime Puig confirmed the extent of the supply issue with SUNRED and Special Tuning Racing’s engines, with only four cars running the new engine this weekend, all of which qualified in the top 12, with Tarquini threatening Chevrolet for pole position.

“They (SUNRED) ordered the engines very late,” said Puig to TouringCarTimes. “They ordered engines on the 29th February, so normally an engine it takes around 12 weeks to do it and they will have engines when they’re available.”

“Tom Boardman (will get) the first one because he ordered an engine even before Darryl O’Young, but then the put priority on Darryl, so Tom I hope in a few moments we can fulfil after Marrakech, and the others we will see.”