Ignacio Montenegro: “I risked everything on the last attempt”

Ignacio Montenegro qualified in fifth position for the FIA TCR World Tour season finale in Macau as the top GOAT Racing Honda driver, despite it being the first time the Argentinian driver competes at the Guia street circuit in Macau.

“I’m very happy with my performance, I didn’t expect it, to be honest,” Montenegro told TouringCarTimes.

“We did quite well, especially since we don’t have a good pace, it has been complicated since we were in Zhuzhou, fighting with the cars.

“But I was able to do a good lap, I risked everything on the last attempt, I knew that if I hit the wall I would lose everything, but I was still very close and managed a good lap.”

Despite the strong result, the 20-year old remains cautious about the steps to convert his qualifying performance into race results at the Guia circuit.

“The starts are a bit difficult with this car,” said Montenegro.

“But the first thing is to start well, not slide, do Mandarin and Lisboa well. From then on, it’s difficult to overtake, so not make any mistakes, because the walls are unforgiving and one can break the whole car. So keep doing things right and accumulating experience in Macau.”

GOAT Racing team-mates Pepe Oriola and Esteban Guerrieri reported problems with braking during the practice sessions leading up to qualifying and Montenegro hopes that he will be clear from them this weekend.

“We have decided on a different setup that will help us, so I haven’t had braking issues here,” the Honda driver said.

“At Inje and Zhuzhou we had problems with the brakes and not Esteban, now it’s the opposite, we don’t understand why and this is a bit worrying. So we are going to try to find out what happened and continue learning in Macau.”