*After the end of Race 1, five drivers including Tiago Monteiro were given a 30-second penalty, which demoted Tiago to 13th. Meanwhile he has been promoted to 10th in Race 2 due to a penalty given to another car.

Races 1 and 2 of the Chinese round of the World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) took place under a clear sky at the Shanghai International Circuit on Sunday, 4 November.

Race 1:
Race 1 got underway at 2:45pm over 13 laps. Tiago Monteiro started the first race in his Honda Civic WTCC from 17th. While many close fights for position and accidents such as contacts took place at the first three turns on the opening lap after a rolling start, Tiago Montairo in his Civic WTCC climbed to 11th. He was subsequently involved in a battle for seventh place with five other cars. On Lap 3, a leading car went off the track and then the Civic edged past a rival at the end of the long straight, promoting Tiago to ninth. He steadily improved to climb to eighth on Lap 4 and then seventh on Lap 7 catching up with the cars in front one by one. Towards the end of the race, one of the fastest cars from the qualifying, but which had dropped its position right after the start, started to close in on the Civic WTCC, but Tiago maintained his position to finish the race in seventh. His final margin over the eighth-placed car was just nine hundreds of a second.

Race 2:
The Civic WTCC driven by Tiago Montairo started Race 2 from 17th on the grid from a standing start. As in Race 1, there were furious battles for position right from the get go, and after a good start, Tiago leapfrogged cars like in Race 1 to climb to 11th on the first lap. He climbed even further to ninth on Lap 4 and engaged in a fight for eighth place with three others. A four-way battle continued down to the wire before Tiago came to the final lap in tenth, but the Portuguese driver was passed by another car at the exit of the last turn, which knocked him back to 11th. However luck is on Monteiro's side. After the finish of the race, the Civic WTCC was promoted to tenth in the final classification due to a penalty given to another car.

The next and final round of the 2012 WTCC will be held at the Guia Circuit on the streets of Macau, first on Friday the 16th November for qualifying and then on Sunday the 18th for the race proper.

Driver Tiago Monteiro:

“It’s been a very positive weekend. In Race 1, we had a very good opportunity because everybody got very hot and excited. I am very happy with the result. There were some problems during the beginning of the weekend, so we had to try many things. We missed Q2 by a narrow margin, but we knew that we could do something to improve. Again, I’ve learnt a lot about the car and now understand it more, so I am more confident about it. The balance of the car was very good through both of the races and I was very happy with the car. I was able to push and attack, and I felt very comfortable with it. I think we’ve been in the right direction and this has been a very valuable weekend.”

Honda Racing Team JAS Team Principal, Alessandro Mariani:

“Yesterday, we were not at the top of our potential with some mechanical problems and mistakes. Fortunately today, Tiago did very good races. Starting from 17th and recovering positions is not easy, but he was able to stay away from crashes to achieve a very good result. The seventh place after only two races is surely a very good result. Of course, we still need a lot more experience, testing and work, but we are very proud to have always been around the top 10 in races.”

Chief Engineer for Civic WTCC Development, Daisuke Horiuchi:

“To be honest, I’ve been delighted by the result of Race 1. I am very satisfied with the fact that we past ten cars and moved up to seventh. Tiago did a very good job. In Race 2, we dropped a place at the end, which is a little disappointing, but I am happy that we climbed some positions and completed the race. I would like to thank Tiago for his effort in the close fights. Regarding the car, in the races, we applied the set up which we had used in Practice 1 yesterday because we thought it provided the best balance, and I think it worked well to get these results. I feel that the car has been improving gradually, but there is still a gap between top cars and us. I’ve realised we need to further improve the potential of our car for next year. We will do our best in the last event to help with our preparation for next year.”

WTCC World Touring Car Championship
Round 11: China