Tiago Monteiro in the points in Curitiba

Tiago Monteiro secured his first points of the 2010 FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC), today on the circuit of Curitiba in Brazil that hosted the opening two races of the year. 11th at the start of the first race, the Portuguese driver crossed the finish line of the second round in 7th place.
The Curitiba weekend marked Tiago’s return to the wheel of the SEAT León TDI after climbing out of the car last November, so it was a question of him acclimatizing to his new team, SR-Sport, as well.

An excellent start enabled him to move up three places on the first lap of the second Brazilian race, which he started in 11th place. Then Tiago overtook Danish SEAT driver, Michel Nykjaer, and was in the fight for fifth place with Augusto Farfus. He eventually finished the race in 7th place, four seconds shy of the podium.

The goal was to secure points in the opening round, which he did, but Tiago believes that it will be necessary to do a lot of work on the car in order to find the right set up appropriate for his driving style. "I did secure some points and it is a good thing, but we have to work hard on the car. We had braking problems all weekend long, we are resolving them right now but they definitely made the weekend even harder. We will have some upgrades for the fifth race but we need more time to be more competitive. We need to be more confident when we’re driving the car in order to be able to push hard and to win more positions," explained Tiago.

In the first race, which was disputed on a damp track, Tiago had a lot of trouble trying to control his SEAT León TDI in the turns, as did his teammates of the SR-Sport squad who all had difficulties with the brakes. He gained several places before a small off track excursion cost him a place in the points. "The line was really slippery. I tried to push hard in the opening stage when my tyres were very good but I ended up braking a bit too late in the first chicane and I lost quite a lot of time. Having said that, this weekend allowed us to gather some precious data that will be useful after such a long time away from the track."

In Curitiba, Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini raced with a sticker ’www.saveafonso.com’ on their car in order to help driver Andre Couto find a bone marrow donor compatible for his son, Afonso, who is just 6 years old and suffering from leukaemia. Another SR-Sport driver. Tom Coronel, joined in the quest and put "Be a bone marrow donor" (Make a gift of bone marrow) on his car. FIA WTCC triple world champion, Andy Priaulx, also took part in the event by promoting the collection of blood for a compatibility test which will take place on March 11 in England.