WTCC - Tiago Monteiro at Imola preview

After a two-year break, the Enzo and Dino Ferrari Circuit will host the 17th and 18th races of the FIA World Touring Car Championship. Tiago Monteiro will travel to the principality of San Marino for the first time since 2006, when he was racing in the Formula 1 World Championship.

It is an historic circuit that the Porto native still has vivid memories of, "It is a circuit I like a lot. It is composed of straight lines and fast corners, and so it has all the ingredients for an exciting race in the current WTCC panorama. The championship is at a turning point in the season and no one can predict what the Imola weekend will be like. There is no designated favourite and we will have to wait and see what are the potentials of each of the cars on this very particular circuit."

SEAT Sport is currently leading the World Championship, notably thanks to two wins by Tiago Monteiro, but the slightest detail will count at Imola and he will have to approach perfection on a circuit that most of the drivers know like the back of their hands.

"I think that almost all the drivers racing in the WTCC have already racked up a lot of kilometres at Imola. On one hand it's good, because no one will have an advantage from knowing the circuit. I am confident that I can achieve a good result. My motivation is high because we demonstrated that we can do great things at Oschersleben, on a complicated circuit. I think that at Imola we will be overcome the difficulty SEAT Sport has in carrying more weight than the others."

Weather forecasts for the Imola meeting are calling for rain on Friday, the day the first tests will be held. The rest of the weekend will be under a changing sky, partly cloudy with temperatures not expected to reach 20°C.

The Imola races will be rebroadcast on Eurosport, with Saturday's qualifying at 6:30PM and the races live at 11:00AM and 14:15 on Sunday.


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