Tiago Monteiro ‘saved by the bell’ to take race 2 win

Tiago Monteiro took his third win of the season for Castrol Honda Racing today in Buriram, Thailand. The driver was on cloud nine after having scored another victory and bagging more points.

“It was not my best start, unlike in race 1,” admitted the Portuguese. “I stayed behind Norbert (Michelisz) and so I started pushing to see if he had any weak points. I made my move early in the race and that was a good feeling.”

After having overtaken the Hungarian, Monteiro tried to open the widest possible gap in order to be prepared for the Citroëns reaching him: “I started pushing like I were in qualifying, I wanted to open a gap because I knew the Citroëns were going to come. Sébastien (Loeb) was always a few tenths faster, I got a good margin but it was not enough. The car was nice to drive, it was tricky and I made a few small mistakes, but it was okay.”

Monteiro admits that anything could have happened without the red flag, which stopped the race due to low light conditions: “The last lap was going to be really hot and I knew I would have to fight with Sébastien. I saw it was getting darker but I didn’t know there was this option to stop the race. Had I known that I would have done things a bit differently, I tried to save the tyres a bit because I knew I would need them at the end.

“I was saved by the bell, we will never know what would have happened without the red flag but of course I’m happy like that. We need to win, so we will take it. We are still quite optimistic, because we are working hard and we are improving in every area”