Vila Real WTCC: Honda's Tiago Monteiro secures victory at home
Tiago Monteiro scored a famous World Touring Car Championship victory in Vila Real, winning the second race in front of his home Portuguese crowd ahead of Citroen's Yvan Muller
Monteiro secured pole for the main race in Saturday's qualifying session and led from lights-to-flag in his factory Honda Civic to clinch his ninth WTCC win, despite issuing fears about his engine.
After converting pole into a first lap lead, Monteiro struggled to shake off the Citroen of Muller - who had held his second away from the grid, ahead of Norbert Michelisz and Rob Huff in the second and third Civics.
Monteiro soon stabilised his lead, but gave the home crowd a fright when he reported that his engine had cut at the end of lap five.
Those fears were gradually allayed as Monteiro continued to reel off laps at the front, with the Portuguese eventually winning by 0.821 seconds from Muller.
Michelisz completed the podium despite getting a hurry-up nudge from team-mate Huff, who settled for fourth.
Jose Maria Lopez struggled to keep pace with the leading quartet and, despite catching the pack up midway through the race, eventually dropped 12s back from Huff in a subdued fifth in the second factory Citroen, just a second clear of Polestar's Thed Bjork.
Nicky Catsburg and Lada team-mate Hugo Valente both made strong getaways and secured seventh and ninth respectively, with Valente splitting Sebastien Loeb Racing drivers Mehdi Bennani and Tom Chilton.
RESULTS - 14 LAPS:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Tiago Monteiro | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 27m53.321s |
2 | Yvan Muller | Citroen Racing | Citroen | 0.821s |
3 | Norbert Michelisz | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 2.181s |
4 | Rob Huff | Honda Racing Team JAS | Honda | 3.402s |
5 | Jose Maria Lopez | Citroen Racing | Citroen | 16.164s |
6 | Thed Bjork | Polestar Cyan Racing | Volvo | 17.374s |
7 | Nicky Catsburg | LADA Sport | Lada | 17.904s |
8 | Mehdi Bennani | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 21.614s |
9 | Hugo Valente | LADA Sport | Lada | 23.054s |
10 | Tom Chilton | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 23.364s |
11 | James Thompson | Munnich Motorsport | Chevrolet | 28.125s |
12 | Gregoire Demoustier | Sebastien Loeb Racing | Citroen | 33.547s |
13 | Gabriele Tarquini | LADA Sport | Lada | 34.675s |
14 | John Filippi | Campos Racing | Chevrolet | 47.223s |
15 | Ferenc Ficza | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | 47.654s |
16 | Tom Coronel | ROAL Motorsport | Chevrolet | 1 Lap |
- | Daniel Nagy | Zengo Motorsport | Honda | Retirement |
- | Robert Dahlgren | Polestar Cyan Racing | Volvo | Retirement |
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
Pos | Driver | Points |
---|---|---|
1 | Jose Maria Lopez | 244 |
2 | Tiago Monteiro | 143 |
3 | Nicky Catsburg | 139 |
4 | Mehdi Bennani | 134 |
5 | Yvan Muller | 133 |
6 | Norbert Michelisz | 127 |
7 | Rob Huff | 125 |
8 | Gabriele Tarquini | 104 |
9 | Tom Chilton | 103 |
10 | Tom Coronel | 75 |
11 | Hugo Valente | 70 |
12 | Thed Bjork | 41 |
13 | Fredrik Ekblom | 35 |
14 | James Thompson | 22 |
15 | Gregoire Demoustier | 11 |
16 | John Filippi | 7 |
17 | Ferenc Ficza | 2 |
18 | Rene Munnich | 2 |
19 | Sabine Schmitz | 1 |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments