Tiago Monteiro: Looking back to front.

Saturday, 24th March 2007

Everything was already agreed [with Spyker], but my sponsors wanted more too so we agreed to look elsewhere - I wasn’t motivated to continue struggling with a team where I couldn’t see any evolution in the short-term.

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Unfortunately, because I was talking to other teams I was not able to communicate my reasons properly so in the media it appeared as though Adrian Sutil had come in and pinched my seat. In reality, I had told the team ten days before that I was turning the seat down.

One of the other teams I was talking to was Scuderia Toro Rosso and talks with them went very well for a while, but it became a lot tougher when Red Bull decided they wanted to give their drivers another chance. I almost managed to get the deal and it was really, really tight up until the end. That was why it took so long for them to announce their drivers.

The budget at Toro Rosso was actually a lot less than Spyker were requesting too so, from that point of view, it made much more sense for me to go there rather than stay put, while the links with Red Bull are invaluable too given their involvement across the sport.

So am I disappointed to miss out on an F1 drive this year? Yes, I was disappointed to miss out on Toro Rosso, but not to give up my drive at Spyker. I wish them the best of luck, but I didn’t want to stay there.

I wasn’t all that keen to be a test driver either because I only wanted to be involved with top teams and not what I call middle teams, so when middle teams came to me with deals, I was not that interested.

I did think it would be better if I could find a good test drive in one of the top three or four teams, but that didn’t happen because there was no room by the time the negotiations had finally finished with Toro Rosso

Instead, I decided it was best for me to try and find a competitive seat in another series...

I had actually been contacted way back in September by Serge Saulnier from Peugeot about the possibility of switching to the Le Mans Series and that did look very tempting. At that time though, I still had two F1 offers on the table so I decided to chase them and say 'thank-you but no thank-you' to Peugeot. I did try and get back in contact in December but, by that point, the drivers had been announced and there was no room for me.