Monteiro: I was so close to Toro Rosso - EXCLUSIVE

Tiago Monteiro has revealed that he went right to the eleventh hour with regard to being a race driver with Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2007, only to be overlooked in favour of the team's existing Red Bull-backed pairing.

The Portuguese star told Crash.net that, having turned his back on Spyker, he was the reason that Toro Rosso took so long to confirm its line-up, especially with regard to Scott Speed, but eventually missed out when primary backer Red Bull opted to remain loyal to its prot?g?s.

"Negotiations with Toro Rosso went very well for a while, but then became a little bit tougher when Red Bull decided to give another chance to their drivers," Monteiro admitted, "It was really really tight, and was almost done right up until the end, which is why it took so long to announce their drivers - because things with me were really close to happening. While I'm not disappointed at all about the Spyker deal, it was so close at Toro Rosso that I was a bit disappointed about [missing out]."

The former Jordan, Midland and Spyker pilot revealed that the financial requirements for joining the Faenza team were a lot lower than those being asked of him by Spyker but, when he missed out on a race drive, he had no intention of committing himself to a test role.

"The budget at Toro Rosso was a lot less than what Spyker needed so, in terms of sponsorship, it was also a lot better and, as you can imagine, business plan-wise and marketing-wise, with Red Bull, it was very strong, so that was always going to be good from the point of view of being a race driver " he continued.

"In terms of being a test driver, there was no need to bring a budget at all, but I always said - and I maintain - that, if I was going to be a test driver, I wanted it to be with a top team and not in a middle team. When I saw that there were opportunities around with teams in the middle of the grid, I didn't necessarily think it was better for me, but finding a good test drive in one of the top three or four teams didn't happen because there was no room as things so long with Toro Rosso. With all the best test driver seats already taken, I decided that it was best to go to another series."

Monteiro was also quick to clarify that, contrary to media belief, he had not been dumped by Spyker in favour of rookie Adrian Sutil. Quite the opposite in fact, as he claims he had already told the team that he would not be back in 2006.

"The way things were, I could have signed a contract with Spyker back in Brazil, at the last race of 2006, but I needed some guarantees in terms of the evolution of the team, the future of the team," he told Crash.net radio, "I asked for more time when I asked for those guarantees as, obviously, I know that these things take time.

"I also know that it's hard for a team to guarantee that it is going to be quicker, whether by half-a-second, a second, two seconds - it's impossible - but what I wanted really was to find out about the short-term future of the team. And it became more and more clear, especially with some insider information, that the team was still going to struggle for a while.

"Don't get me wrong, the Spyker project is very good - it's got a great business plan and I really do believe that it's going to be good in the mid-term. In the next two, three, four years maybe you will see a big improvement in Spyker if things go as planned. However, in the short-term, I couldn't see any real evolution plans. It was really going to be another tough year for Spyker, and I couldn't afford to spend a third year in a similar position - either for myself as a professional driver or for my sponsors.

"Everything was agreed [with the sponsorship] - there were a lot of meetings between the Spyker people and my sponsors - but, like me, they wanted more, so we decided that it wasn't the best situation for me. And I have to admit that, personally, I wasn't motivated to continue struggling with a team where I couldn't see any evolution in the short-term. So we told them that we were not going to sign their contract as it was.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to communicate that at the time, as I was also talking to other teams, so the way it appeared [in the media] was that Adrian Sutil came in and took my place when, in reality, maybe ten days before that, I had announced to the team that I wouldn't be racing with them."

Monteiro revealed that he had not been short of offers over the winter, with proposals from the DTM and Champ Cars joining those from touring and sportscar teams - and Toro Rosso - on his table. However, with the exception of a call from Peugeot's Serge Saulnier and SEAT Sport in the WTCC, none came up to the level of competitiveness that the Portuguese driver wanted. When the ongoing Toro Rosso deal precluded him from giving Saulnier a definitive answer, another door closed, but Monteiro insists that he is happy with the decision to sign with SEAT for the WTCC.

"They offered me what I was looking for, which was a proper works race drive with the professionalism I was used to," he concluded.