Honda’s Tiago Monteiro is aiming to make the most of his pole position for the main World Touring Car Championship race on the streets of Marrakech, after beating his team-mates to the top time.
Monteiro scored his first pole since July 2016 by beating the Volvo of Néstor Girolami around the Circuit Moulay el Hassan, with the Portuguese driver having been amongst the favourites to go quickest having been earlier fastest in first practice.
Monteiro believes that the fastest time was down to the development that the JAS Motorsport-run Honda team have put in during the off season.
“This is exactly what we needed,” said Monteiro. “As a team we’ve worked incredibly hard over the winter to develop the Civic. We knew that we’d made progress, but you still have to show it, in front of everyone else, to prove that the progress is real.”
With the Main Race now being worth 30 points, as opposed to the 25 available for the reversed-grid Opening Race, Monteiro knows that being at the front of the field will be important late on Sunday.
“Norbi [Michelisz] was very fast all day, so I knew I had to set a very good laptime to get pole, but I did and this is the result.
“I was pretty happy with my lap and to have pole for the first Main Race of the year feels fantastic. On a street track pole position is a bigger advantage than normal because it’s so difficult to overtake, so I’m aiming to make the most of it.”
Team Principal Alessandro Mariani added that the team had even run brand new components throughout Saturday in an effort to secure the front-row starting position.
“This is an excellent result for the team after what’s been a very demanding past few weeks to get everything ready for the start of the season,” added Mariani. “We have some brand-new upgrades on the car that didn’t run until this morning in FP1, so there were a few nerves, but this result is just fantastic.
“It is deserved because of all the hard work by the mechanics and engineers working on this programme.”