Turkish GP: Tiago at the Thursday press conference

By Huw Alban
August 25 2006

Tiago Monteiro got invited to the Thursday press conference in Turkey. Alongside Jenson Button, David Coulthard, and Kimi Raikkonen the Portuguese driver answered questions from the FIA and the worlds press. Interestingly, he was asked about the stories circulating of a team sale...

Q: Tiago, 14th on the grid here last year and you finished 15th, but what are your memories and thoughts about this circuit?

Tiago MONTEIRO: We had quite a good race actually until we had some gearbox issues and we lost a lot of time. But time wise it was one of our best races last year, the balance was pretty good and taking into account that our car is a lot better than last year - we are really looking forward to this one. It’s the kind of track that suits this car and my driving style as well, so I am looking forward to it. My memories of last year are also of my huge toothache problem and it was treated by my team owner which was quite interesting. But fortunately everything is fine this weekend and I am looking forward to it.

Q: Last weekend was a busy one for you in Holland, tell us about that?

TM: Yes it was a great event in Rotterdam, we did a demo in the streets and there was a huge amount of fans there and it was a big event organised by a Dutch company with drivers like Nico Rosberg and Verstappen. It was a big, big party and was really a lot of fun with burnouts and donuts. It was raining a bit, but people were still there and it was well organised and it’s good for F1 in general to have things like this, they should happen a lot more often because the fans get to see F1 really close and they see things they would normally never see at a normal race track.

Q: You nearly got a point in the last race at Hungary, what are your aims for the rest of the season?

TM: It’s still the same, we’re still looking for points, it’s not going to be easy but we are fighting for it. We obviously were close because of the circumstance of the weather which helped a lot. But we still have five races to get points.

Q: Question to you all, what did you do during the holidays?

TM: I went to the south of France after Hungary for a few days to see some friends as well. And then back to Portugal to do sponsors things in Lisbon.

Q: (Dan Knutson – National Speed Sport News) Tiago, we always hear rumours of the team being for sale. How unsettling is that in the team for the drivers, the mechanics and the engineers and so on?

TM: You can’t really focus on that. It’s not up to us, it’s not up to the mechanics, the engineers or the drivers. It’s decisions that are taken above us and we can’t really intervene, so we have to try and just do our work. It doesn’t affect me, I don’t think it really does affect a lot of people in the team because they are all there to work and whoever their owner will be it will be the same at the end of the day, so we just move on and work and wait and see, really.

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