Tiago Monteiro on Vila Real double podiums: “not possible without joker lap”

Tiago Monteiro has praised the organisation and the Vila Real circuit for their effort to get the joker lap implemented this weekend after a late challenge on Saturday, with the new championship leader stating the joker lap was also pivotal to his results on Sunday.

Monteiro finished second in Race 1, working his way forward from seventh on the grid, and made a key jump during the joker lap phase, leapfrogging team-mate Ryo Michigami and the Volvo of Néstor Girolami to take second in the race.

Although the joker lap made no difference to his Race 2 result, starting fourth and finishing third, thanks to Rob Huff stalling his Citroën on the grid, the weekend’s results were well received by the local fans, with Monteiro resuming the lead of the championship which he lost in a disastrous race at the Nürburgring four weeks ago.

The Portuguese driver’s mistake in qualifying on the one-lap shootout cost him a front row position, and so Monteiro believes the results are as good as they could have been.

“When you don’t start on pole here, it’s hard to dream of a victory, but nothing is over until it’s done,” he said. “We wanted to score some good points in the championship, and that was the main goal after what happened in qualifying.

“I’m over the moon with these two podiums, and two podiums on a circuit like this where it’s very hard to overtake wouldn’t have been possible without the joker lap, so I think it was a great success and congratulations to Eurosport, Francois Ribeiro and the race track to have put this together in such a short time. It was not easy and they were working until very late last night to try and sort it out.”

The joker lap had come under threat after the teams of the championship raised safety concerns about the format on Saturday evening, after trying out the route in the two practice sessions.

The FIA, the promoter and the teams worked together to define a solution on Saturday night, with work going on until 4am to modify the joker lap corner ahead of an extra recce session on Sunday afternoon, where the teams gave it their approval.

Monteiro’s now retaken the lead of the championship from Volvo’s Nicky Catsburg, but with the other Volvo of Thed Björk finishing third and second in today’s two races, Monteiro’s lead is just a slender four points, going to the next round in Argentina in two weeks.

“I want to try and keep this championship lead now after the disaster of Germany where I lost 40 points in one weekend,” he said. “I’m going to try and build it up step-by-step, but the others aren’t going to make it easy.”