Podium joy for Honda at Monza

Gabriele Tarquini secured his and the Castrol Honda World Touring Car Team’s first podium of the 2013 campaign during the second race of the day at Monza.

The 2009 Champion lined up fifth for the second race of the day and led for four laps until the Chevrolet of Yvan Muller came calling and demoted the Italian to second and soon after the Frenchman made his move on Tarquini, he was under pressure from Michel Nykjaer and the Danish driver took second at Ascari.

Tarquini then held on to bring home the #3 Honda Civic home 3^rd and with it, third place in the Championship.

Speaking after the race, Tarquini is optimistic for the season ahead and believes that he will continue to gain speed as the season progresses.

“As we are today some tracks will suit us more than others but for sure we have a lot of development opportunities to come which can see us gaining in performance all the time,” explains Tarquini.

“It is my first event in the Civic and my first podium which is great. This result is my present to the team, our Japanese Italian team who have worked so hard to get the Civic on the track and competitive.

“This is for all the team, all the engineers and the entire Honda people,” added Tarquini. “We will go to Marrakesh for a new challenge, every year that track seems to have something different, changed kerbs, changed surfaces in paces so it is always difficult but I think the Honda will be good there.”

Tarquini’s Castrol Honda team-mate, Tiago Monteiro brought the #18 car home 8^th having started down in 15^th position. Monteiro made up four positions on the opening lap and continued to climb up the order, and by the half way point had moved into 8^th position, a position he’d hold until the flag.

“I want to start higher up the grid in future and then we can look to collect more points in the Championship,” added Monteiro, who leaves Italy 7^th overall with 14 Championship points.

The opening race of the day saw Tarquini and Monteiro finish fourth and fifth, with Monteiro having to perform a recovery drive after his bad qualifying result the previous day while Tarquini had to work his way up the order after his penalty for a qualifying incident.