We’ll have a bit of everything in the next two weeks: we race on a circuit we all know so well, Bahrain, and then on a completely new layout we never used before. Racing on a new track is something we have done quite a few times this season so by now I would expect all teams to have a tried and tested approach to this challenge and therefore I don’t think we’ll have big surprises. Still, it will be interesting to see how racing goes on a fairly unusual layout. In the end, we will adapt very quickly to whatever the situation is and try to get the most out of the race weekend.

I’m excited for the final three races of the season and I think we will have the opportunity to do well. I had a good race in Bahrain last year, just missing out on the points in only my second race back in the sport, and I generally feel good about the circuit. The layout we will race on in the second week is a bit more of a question mark: it’s very fast and it’s a very short lap, which should make finding space in qualifying a challenge. It’ll be interesting to see how the grip changes from the parts of the track we use in week one to the new ones of week two: there will be a lot to learn but it’ll be an interesting one.

The final stretch of the season is here: it’s a crucial triple-header and there’s still everything to play for. Of course, after such an intense year everyone is starting to feel a bit of fatigue and, with next season just around the corner, the temptation would be to look to the future already and lose sight of the objective at hand, but we cannot underestimate the task ahead of us in these final three races. We have shown in Turkey, with both Kimi and Antonio qualifying in the top ten, that we are moving upwards, and the run we had in the second part of the season, scoring in half the events we took part in, gives us confidence we can keep performing well. Bahrain is a track that promotes good racing and the novel layout for the second race is a big leap into the dark for all teams. We need to be prepared for everything, including a very messy qualifying session on the second week’s very short layout, but I am confident we will be ready for the challenge.