Press Release, 20 July 2002

FIA INTERNATIONAL FORMULA 3000
ROUND 8 - MAGNY-COURS, FRANCE

Following yesterday's good qualifying performance by the Super Nova drivers, Sebastien Bourdais starting from second place on the grid was hoping to pass Tomas Enge at the start and extend his lead in the championship while Tiago Monteiro was hoping to move up a couple of places from starting eighth on the grid to get his first points of the season. Tiago Monteiro did not have the best of starts and had dropped to tenth by the end of lap one. He drove a good race though, fighting off cars from behind to eventually finish in ninth position, his best result of the year so far. 

Tiago Monteiro: "I had a bad start and as it is so difficult to overtake here you need to get a good one. For some reason I had my worst start of the year so it was a shame when I lost two or three places at the beginning as I knew it would be very, very hard to come back. I just tried to keep pace with the cars in front but I had a lot of pressure from behind. I tried to push really hard but the car was really sliding around and I didn't get a chance to let my tyres cool down on any lap as I was always fighting. It's my best finish yet and during every race I am getting more and more experience. I know that my experience of this track in the past helped me to be more confident so I hope I can take this to Hockenheim. I'm really enjoying driving the car now and I was really aggressive today."


Team Manager - David Sears: Tiago Monteiro had a really strong race to finish the best rookie in ninth place. He lost a couple of places at the start of the race but then didn't let anyone passed after that and his lap times were impressive.

The next race at the new Hockenheim circuit in Germany will be very interesting as no one has raced there before."

Final Results: 1st Tomas Enge; 2nd Sebastien Bourdais; 3rd Giorgio Pantano; 4th Antonio Pizzonia; 5th Mario Haberfeld; 6th Enrico Toccacelo; 7th Patrick Friesacher; 8th Rodrigo Sperafico; 9th Tiago Monteiro.

Praça João Martinho de Freitas, lote 22 A – 2750-388 Cascais Tel. 21 484 84 00   Fax. 21 486 39 81   Email. dca@dcanews.com