Monteiro rues qualifying gamble

For the first time this season, the Portuguese driver made it to the second part of qualifying, but to do so he had to use all his available tyres.

Being forced to use worn tyres during the race proved a big handicap, and Monteiro was unable to match his teammate's pace, finishing two laps down in 16th.

"Another finish, but a difficult one," admitted Monteiro. "The advantage we gained by making it to the second qualifying session actually hindered us a little bit during the race, because we had to use all the tyres we had available to achieve that.

"We didn't have any new tyres for the race, so that accounted for the major difference between my times and my teammate's.

"When we planned our race strategy, we didn't think it would make such a huge difference because of fuel loads and such, but in the end, it was a massive disadvantage.

"I think we had an amazing car for qualifying, but obviously the balance wasn't that great over a race distance and the tyres never really came to me. It was more of a struggle throughout the race, but we learned from it.

"We gambled and it didn't pay off, so we'll use that knowledge next time. Overall, though, it was a positive weekend. We had amazing pace throughout and the team made good progress, so I'm satisfied. If we were slow all weekend, perhaps I wouldn't feel that way, but having seen what we've done, I'm pretty confident for the future."

Dutchman Christijan Albers finished in front of Monteiro, but only one lap down.

"From my point of view, we had decent pace," he said. "We had a reasonably good car and we're closer to the field - about 13 seconds behind the mid-pack at the end, I believe.

"So I think we did a good job, especially considering what a bad day we had yesterday. It's easy to forget that, but if you take those setbacks into account, our performance today seems even better."