Tiago Monteiro surprised to miss out on pole position in France

Honda’s Tiago Monteiro was “surprised and a bit frustrated” by the performance of Citroën in qualifying for the first round of the 2016 World Touring Car Championship at the Paul Ricard circuit, with the Portuguese driver having to settle for second on the grid, splitting the two factory Citroëns of José María López and Yvan Muller.

Monteiro was third out in the one-lap shootout and produced his best lap time of the weekend, breaking Sébastien Loeb’s pole position record from last year with a time of 1:29.213, but that was bettered by López, who set a time of 1:28.950 on his lap, the only man under 1:29 all weekend.

“I’m a bit surprised and a bit frustrated by the performance of the Citroëns,” said Monteiro to TouringCarTimes. “We thought we’d be fighting with the others but not so much with the Citroëns. We hope that the 80kg will be a bigger burden on the tyres, but they never really struggled on race pace last year on 60kg, but we’ll see what the extra 20kg does. We’ve always been very good on tyre management, so hopefully this difference will make something happen tomorrow.”

Monteiro topped the morning practice session and was second fastest in the second session behind Volvo’s Thed Björk, with the 39-year-old being the Honda driver on form all weekend, working with his new engineer Bári Gergő, formerly Michelisz’s engineer at Zengő.

“It is a good feeling, I feel confident since our car is up there. OK, we know (Citroën) are 80kg heavier but we have to take advantage of it. I’m working well with my new engineer, it’s always strange and special when you start a new relationship, but he’s a very good guy, calm, focussed, and he understands what I want from the car.”