Autosportfoto

Tiago Monteiro on the starting blocks of the 2013 WTCC season

Tiago Monteiro is preparing to take part in the 2013 World Touring Car Championship (WTCC). The event, where Tiago will drive the new Honda Civic, will take place this coming weekend at the Monza circuit in Italy.

After a long winter of testing and development, Tiago Monteiro and JAS Motorsport conducted the shakedown of the Honda Civic last Tuesday and now the Portuguese driver is looking forward to the season opener. "As a team, we all approach this first event with enthusiasm. We have worked hard over recent months in order to prepare the Honda Civic," Tiago said.

"However, we know that our car is still very young and it is still early days. With the shakedown, we can verify that the car meets our expectations and that everything works, temperatures, electronics etc... but we still have work to do on several other details. This first round will be a huge challenge for us. We look forward to it, but we will not know until Saturday if we are competitive and where we want to be. Weather conditions are not encouraging, but we will do our best."

The livery of Tiago Monteiro's Honda Civic is in the colors of the team's main sponsor, Castrol. On Wednesday, Tiago was in Turin, Italy, for the official presentation of the championship before flying to Monza for the debut race of the 2013 season.

The Monza races will be broadcast live on Eurosport, Sunday, March 24 at 13:45 and 16h.