Thanks to the support of JAS Motorsport, WestCoast Racing has signed Tiago Monteiro – a multiple race winner in the FIA World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) – to race one of its three Honda Civic TCRs alongside Gianni Morbidelli and Mikhail Grachev in the Macau Grand Prix (17-20 November).
The Swedish team perennially attracts top-line drivers to its ranks and it notably gave former FIA World Touring Car Champion Rob Huff a platform to achieve a record eighth Macau Grand Prix victory in 2015.
This time WestCoast Racing has reserved one of its TCR-spec Honda Civics for Monteiro – a full-time WTCC campaigner with the factory Honda team – for the climax to the 2016 TCR International Series on the infamous, barrier-lined streets of Macau.
The Portuguese driver enjoyed a successful single-seater career before switching to touring cars. He was twice runner-up in the French Formula 3 Championship before achieving the same result in the 2004 World Series by Nissan, having sampled life in Champ Cars the year before.
Two seasons of Formula 1 followed, but the Porto-domiciled driver has been a frontrunner in the WTCC since 2007.
He has achieved several wins in that time and came agonisingly close to achieving a maiden Macau Grand Prix victory on his most recent visit to the former Portuguese dominion in 2014, when he ground to a halt with mechanical troubles three corners from the chequered flag.
Like his WTCC challenger, the Honda Civic TCR is built and developed by JAS Motorsport and this familiarity will undoubtedly aid Monteiro’s transition to the TCR International Series on the streets of Macau, where he will be teamed with former WTCC rival Morbidelli and Russia’s Grachev, who has been a prolific winner in 2016.
“I am so excited to be back in Macau,” said Monteiro. “It has always been one of my favourite places and I have always enjoyed racing there in Formula 3 or touring cars. I have some unfinished business, as the last time I was there I was leading the race until three corners from the end, when a mechanical problem forced me to retire. For sure, I want some kind of revenge.
“I know the level of the TCR International Series is very high. I know most of the frontrunners, so I’m aware that the task ahead will be tough, especially as they will have completed a whole season with their cars. If I can be at the front, I will be glad and that’s my goal. First of all, I intend to enjoy myself and give it my all, as usual.”