Tiago Monteiro heads into the opening round of the 2013 World Touring Car Championship looking forward to the forthcoming season.
Heading into his first full campaign in the JAS Motorsport built Honda Civic, the Portuguese driver is looking to build on the performances of the three events he completed in 2012 as well as the hard work put in over the winter months by the team.
“As a team, we all approach this first event with enthusiasm. We have worked hard over recent months in order to prepare the Honda Civic,” explains Monteiro.
He expresses some caution ahead of the WTCC race of Italy: “However, we know that our car is still very young and it is still early days. With the shakedown, we can verify that the car meets our expectations and that everything works, temperatures, electronics etc… but we still have work to do on several other details.
“This first round will be a huge challenge for us. We look forward to it, but we will not know until Saturday if we are competitive and where we want to be. Weather conditions are not encouraging, but we will do our best,” concludes the driver of the #18 Honda Civic.
Monza sees the debut of the cars’ new livery after Castrol were announced as the title sponsor for the team in 2013 and the livery features the colours of Castrol as well as the colours of the Portuguese flag.