Tiago Monteiro kept his cool in frantic conditions yesterday afternoon at the Hungaroring and recorded his best finish of the season after an excellent weekend in practice and qualifying where he made it through to the second knockout session.

Tiago Monteiro “I am so pleased for the team to bring home the car home to my best finish of the season. It’s a great achievement especially as we’ve been gradually moving towards this result all weekend and never let up in our efforts. The race was not easy though; there was water everywhere at the start and the wet tyres were not working too well which meant I was sliding off the track everywhere. At that point, it looked bad for me as I was down in 19th but I drove hard and carefully worked my way back up the order.

However, conditions were very tough and on lap 18 the rain was really coming down and there were large pools of standing water all around the circuit. It was very difficult not to aquaplane off or to have contact with any other car. I suffered another spin but recovered and used the safety car period to close right back up on the others by making my second pit stop.

After that the track dried and in the second half of the race my tyres worked much better and I was up in fifteenth. Two laps before the end when everyone was falling off I started hoping we could finish in the points, but in the end I was up in tenth. I think we had a great strategy despite the tricky conditions and I was always at the limit. But the car was behaving well towards the end and I have to thank the team for helping me to the finish.

I’m looking forward to building on this in Turkey!