Honda happy to be closer to Citroën after tough qualifying

Tiago Monteiro starts from fifth for the first race today, breaking into the top five shootout along with the four factory Citroëns, though a mistake at Turn 5 stopped the Portuguese driver from splitting the French cars as he had done throughout practice, while Gabriele Tarquini had to be content with seventh on the grid, which translates to fourth for the reversed grid race.

Monteiro had been second fastest in the first practice session behind local expert José María López, at a track where victory escaped him in 2013 due to a collision with then RML driver Yvan Muller, but fourth in FP2 became fifth by the one-lap qualifying shootout.

“We can see the results of the hard work but we have more to do,” said Monteiro. “I could have had a better result from Q3 but it just didn’t flow for me. I was trying hard to find the right tyre pressures to make the Civic handle perfectly but we didn’t quite get it right. But I’m happy to start the season in Q3 and we can look forward to a strong race tomorrow.”

Tarquini meanwhile was disappointed with his overall pace, but takes solace in his strong grid position for race two, where he’ll start behind James Thompson’s Lada and the two Chevolets of Tom Coronel and Stefano D’Aste.

“I could not get a good pace just like last year. I made a mistake in Q1 and then the red flag in Q2 changed our strategy. But I know Tiago is ahead so I will be pushing him hard so together we can try for a podium in Race 1. I’m on the second row for Race 2 so I have a chance if everything works for me.”

Team principal Alessandro Mariani added:

“To be honest I’m a bit frustrated…we had the pace but did not meet our targets. In Q2 the red flag forced us to change the plan and in Q3 Tiago had a difficult lap with tyre pressures. But I can see that we have taken a big step closer to the competition and much improved over 2014. We have more new parts coming soon which will continue our challenge. I’m a racer and would prefer our cars in first and second place but our winter changes are proving positive and I hope we can demonstrate this tomorrow.”