Minardi Cosworth today moved into the second, and final, day of its test at the Vallelunga Circuit, near Rome. At the wheel of the Minardi PS04B chassis on Friday was Champcar and Superfund World Series by Nissan driving star, Tiago Monteiro. The 28-year-old, from Oporto, quickly settled in, and once familiar with the F1 car and its controls, launched into a programme, under the guidance of Minardi technical staff, that included durability testing of new gearbox components. At the conclusion of the session, which saw Monteiro improve his lap time with each run, he had covered 46 laps of the 3.228-km circuit, assisting the team with the acquisition of data that will be of use in the remaining Formula One races of the 2004 season. Monteiro is provisionally scheduled to test again for Minardi, at Misano, between November 24 and 26.

Tiago Monteiro: "I'm very happy with today's test, which I think was extremely positive. I haven't driven a Formula One car for two years and I was just a little bit anxious before we started, but then that first lap was really amazing. It seems like the engine is never going to stop pulling, and the acceleration and the braking are just incredible. You adjust quite quickly to the performance, however, and then you can start to focus on what you're doing. I was pleased to work with my engineer today, Graziano Michelacci, as he made it very easy to understand what he wanted me to get from the car during the test. We made a few changes, everything went in a good direction, and the lap times improved all the way through the morning, so I'm very pleased. I want to thank all the people from Minardi who were involved today – the team feels like a family and they made it easy for me to do my job."

Gian Carlo Minardi: "Tiago did a good job today, and this is a driver with a future ahead of him, for sure. He was very good in all his runs, from the beginning to the end of the test. He will now have another opportunity to drive for the team, when we test at Misano, in November."

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