There has literally been no let-up over the past couple of months and here we are again, heading off to the next race in China, just a few days after returning from Bahrain. I really enjoyed my first taste of the Shanghai International Circuit last year; it’s a nice challenge and the weather often throws up a few opportunities, particularly in the race. I left Bahrain on a real high and I hope we can enjoy a similarly strong race this weekend and maintain what feels like a bit of an advantage over our nearest competitors at the moment.

I am hoping all my bad luck is behind me now and that China will mark a turning point for a better rest of the season. If we look at the positives, there have been good signs that we have been able to raise our performance level and have a few interesting battles in the races; I hope we can enjoy a few more in Shanghai this weekend. The test ran smoothly in Bahrain last week and I think this will help us with our preparations this week as we are finding out lots of new things about the package all the car and getting strong all the time. I like the track and am looking forward to the final long haul race before we get back to Europe.

It has, quite literally, been a very long haul since the start of the 2014 season. It’s hard to believe that almost ten weeks have passed since the cars first left the factory for the pre-season tests in Bahrain and they haven’t returned since. It has been a similarly tough start for our team members, who had just a couple of days at home after last week’s test before heading straight out again to China. All in all though, I think we’ve responded well to the challenge and, though the first few races have not entirely been plain sailing, we have enjoyed a few positives, including our result in Bahrain which put us back into contention for 10th place in the Constructors’ Championship. Although we are focusing our developments efforts on the start of the European season, we hope that the progress we made at the recent test will provide us with enough momentum to keep us moving forward this weekend in China, where we hope for a bit more luck for further momentum for Max and a little more luck for Jules.