This weekend had a professional and fun purpose for Tiago Monteiro when he participated in the 6h ADAC VLN Endurance Championship at the Nürburgring behind the wheel of a Honda Civic alongside teammate Gabriele Tarquini. The experience could not have gone any better for the Portuguese/Italian duo who made it into ‘pole position’ in the S3 category and only failed to finish in a strong position thanks to a touch from an opponent who forced them into early retirement in the final 20 minutes.
This extra WTCC participation aims to provide the Honda drivers the experience of the German track as the Nürburgring will be part of the WTCC calendar in 2015. “It was more a professional goal achieved. I have thought about making a run this Championship for some time. It is truly astounding and is performed only on German soil. It was unique, very different from the WTCC experience, because it was an endurance race. Moreover it was a good opportunity to truly team with Gabriele. An experience to repeat,” Tiago said.
The main objective for the Honda team in this race was experience. “It was important because we collected data that will allow us to prepare in the best way possible for next time. The layout is 25 kilometers long and even after so much time on track, I still could not get an overall perception of the setting. However it was still very important to start running on this track that will ask a lot of us next season. We leave here with a feeling of accomplishment,” said Tiago Monteiro who now focuses his attention on the WTCC which returns in October on Asian soil.