Tiago Monteiro admits it’ll be tough to keep championship open in Motegi

Although Tiago Monteiro has an outside chance of the drivers’ championship, albeit almost dependent on Citroën driver José María López taking early retirement with a 120-point deficit with just 160 remaining, the Portuguese driver admits it’ll be tough to keep the points battle open after Sunday in Japan after qualifying in fourth.

Monteiro was the best-placed of the four factory Honda drivers at Twin Ring Motegi, with the Portuguese driver making it into the top-five pole position shootout while his two regular team-mates Rob Huff and Norbert Michelisz settled for ninth and tenth, giving them the best grid positions possible for the top ten reversed grid opening race.

“(Qualifying) was much better than expected,” said Monteiro. “We were not very optimistic, but we were able to put one car in Q3 which was very surprising.”

The Honda Civics are carrying 80kg of compensation weight this weekend after a strong run of races in Russia, Portugal and Argentina, the same as rivals Citroën this weekend who have carried the ballast all year.

“We were able to limit the damage with the weight, and managed to prove that even with the same kilos we can still be close,” he added. “Obviously (José María) López was very fast, but (Yvan) Muller and the others were in the same area as us, (but) championship-wise it’s not ideal, as it’ll very difficult to win any of the races. In terms of the championship, it may have been better to play for tenth-place, but that’s not what we want to do, we want to show our speed.”