| A very intense working day awaited Tiago Monteiro on Tuesday at the Valencia circuit in Spain where on the menu was the development of the Toyota powered MidlandF1 M16 that the team revealed at the beginning of the month. With less than a month before it will have to present itself on the Bahrain grid, venue of the first GP of the 2006 season – serious work needs to be done to ensure it is as competitive as possible. Therefore, Tiago put his development qualities at the service of his team, with the aim of control system adjustments of the M16. Over the course of the day he was able to find a good rhythm which enabled him to remain in contact with Williams and not too far away from McLaren. Contrary to the majority of his rivals present, the Portuguese driver did not carry out qualifying simulations, but still finished the day with a 6th placed time. “The car functioned well and we could carry out a lot of laps, more than 80 overall, which enabled us to move on to a new phase of the cars evolution," said a delighted Tiago, "We must learn all we can about this single-seater, learn how it behaves in order to fine tune it, which is very important for me and the team. We managed to make progress with the car every hour in the morning, and its balance was a little better each time I went out." "However, we have not carried out any qualifying simulations yet because we preferred to work on Bridgestone tyres in the afternoon, without pushing it to the limit. Today, I covered more kilometres than during a GP, and above all I am satisfied with the work done and the overall results." Unofficial Times: 1º Webber (Williams) com 1.10.601 – 94 voltas 2º Klien (Red Bull) com 1.11.254 – 100 voltas 3º De la Rosa (McLaren) com 1.11.619 – 16 voltas 4º Montoya (McLaren) com 1.11.700 – 51 voltas 5º Wurz (Williams) com 1.12.657 – 48 voltas 6º Tiago Monteiro (Midland) com 1.12.924 – 82 voltas 7º Doornbos (Red Bull) com 1.13.696 – 86 voltas 8º Winkelhock (Midland) com 1.14.299 – 77 voltas 9º Mondini (Midland) com 1.24.110 – 16 voltas
tiago monteiro |