After testing last week at Spa the team moved onto Budapest in Hungary for round 10 of the championship. Tiago Monteiro had his first visit to this track today and started the first session really well getting up to seventh in just over ten minutes but dropped to tenth by the end of the first forty minutes. In the second session Tiago continued to improve his time and moved back up to seventh quickest with still one set of tyres remaining. However later on in the session he went off the track and onto the gravel and had to receive assistance from the marshalls to rejoin the circuit. Because of this, he had to return to the pits in order to keep his best times. This happened with just over ten minutes of the session remaining, so he dropped back to tenth by the end of the afternoon.

Tiago Monteiro 1:29.135 (P10): “Another new track for me and things started better than I had expected. It is not really a track that I like, it is very dirty, slippery and bumpy but this is the kind of track where I have a clean driving style. We tried lots of different things to have a good set-up. We improved further and further and on the second set of tyres we had a good balance and I was up to seventh on the second lap and then on the next lap improved even more and it was looking good for the final set of tyres, but I pushed a bit too hard and went off in the slow chicane. I went onto the gravel and I needed outside assistance, which meant that if I didn’t want to lose the times I had to go back to the pits. I am a bit annoyed as I could have improved the time and could have been very close to the points positions, but I’m not finding excuses, as it is a tricky track for everyone. However I still have one set of new tyres for the race but it will be pretty difficult to overtake, but we’ll see.”

Team Manager – David Sears: "Tiago Monteiro made a huge effort in qualifying to end up only two tenths off Sebastien on his second set of tyres, but unfortunately then spun off into the gravel trap and lost the opportunity to use his last set of tyres as he had to be pulled out by a tractor and then had to park his car in parc ferme. However Tiago’s performance since Magny Cours has been much better and much more consistent and he lines up tenth on the grid for tomorrow.”