FIA INTERNATIONAL FORMULA 3000 ROUND 4 QUALIFYING AT A1 RING, AUSTRIA

Tiago Monteiro had yet another new circuit to learn during qualifying today. In the first session he only used one set of new tyres and finished sixteenth quickest. During the second session he continued to improve his knowledge of the circuit and moved up to fifteenth. After qualifying had finished Tiago's two best lap times were disallowed because it was alleged that he had not slowed down when a yellow flag was displayed at the end of the second session but it did not affect his qualifying position. 

Tiago Monteiro 1:23.379 (P15) "I am quite happy with everything overall, although I'm still in fifteenth place, which I don't like, I did improve my driving a lot today. The car had too much over steer in the fast turns, but apart from that everything else on the car was ok but it wasn't easy to drive here at all, as you can see from Sebastien's performance, he has been on pole for the last three races but found it tough today. I'm getting closer, I was only seven tenths away from him today. It will be a long race tomorrow and the first lap will be very dangerous as there are always lots of accidents so I have to try and stay clear of them." 

Team Manager - David Sears "This was quite the worst qualifying performance of the year so far with Sebastien Bourdais finishing in ninth place, but only 0.3 seconds off pole position and Tiago Monteiro in fifteenth position, 1.3 seconds back on his first visit to the circuit with no testing. Obviously our engineers need to work harder for the race tomorrow. Luckily the tyres last a long time on the super smooth surface of the A1 Ring so we have a chance to improve positions during this race."


Qualifying Session:

1 Tomas Enge 1.22,190 minutos

2 Giorgio Pantano + 0,018 s

3 Enrico Toccacelo + 0,137 s

4 Mario Haberfeld + 0,235 s

5 Antonio Pizzonia + 0,244 s

6 Bjorn Wirdheim + 0,257 s

7 David Saelens + 0,262 s

8 Patrick Friesacher + 0,310 s

9 Sebastien Bourdais + 0,319 s

10 Ricardo Sperafico + 0,354 s

15 Tiago Monteiro + 1,062 s

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