MF1 Racing - the Formula One team owned and operated by Midland Group - is delighted to announce that 2005 Portuguese driver Tiago Monteiro won the prestigious 2005 Autosport.com Rookie of the Year Award, on Sunday night at the Grosvenor House Hotel, in London. In spite of serious competition from other nominees including Christijan Albers (F1), Timo Glock (Champ Car), Nico Rosberg (GP), Kyle Busch (Nextel Cup), Heikki Kovalainen (GP2), Danica Patrick (IRL) and Daniel Sordo (Junior WRC), Monteiro was elected Rookie of the Year by users of Autosport's website.

In 2005, Monteiro finished 18 races out of 19, including one podium and scoring a point at the very challenging Circuit of Spa Francorchamps in difficult weather conditions.

Tiago Monteiro stated: "After such an amazing season with a lot of records and prizes, it is a honour to win this award. It is probably one of the most important ones as it reflects the best rookie all over the world in the leading motorsport categories. Therefore this is the award I wanted to win the most of all. I remember a few years ago, when I was not even racing, I was already looking at the Autosport Awards. I was dreaming of being here one day and now being elected the best rookie is overwhelming. I am very proud but I also realise you can never achieve this on your own. There are a lot of people involved. The team did an amazing job to help me go through a difficult first season and I can only thank them. I would also like to thank my family, friends and sponsors who have been supporting me throughout the years. It was also particularly important as this was the last season for Jordan and for the first time, it is also the first big award for Midland. I want to dedicate that prize to all of them."

Johnny Herbert, Sporting Relations Manager, commented: "Last night's award for Tiago was very well deserved. He did a fantastic job this year. The consistency showed that he was very good in being able to look after the car and bring it home. He was very unfortunate with the problem he had in Brazil but which was no fault of his own. I think he has just proved that he has a lot of talent especially in the races, which is the most important part of a Grand Prix weekend. Hopefully in the future this will be something he could use to his advantage to further his career in Formula One."

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