Silverstone is a very important weekend for the whole team, so I’m looking forward to it and happy that the problems of Valencia are behind me. We have some substantial upgrade developments which I hope will give us a little step forward and ensure we can have a good showing. Silverstone is a track I really enjoy; one of my favourites. It still has a lot of high speed corners and it is a completely different challenge to the last two tracks we have raced at. Normally it can be very interesting with the weather; not just the sunshine or rain, but it can often be quite windy, which can upset the car quite a lot from day to day and from session to session. Overall, I can’t wait to get back in the car and work with the team towards a smooth home race for the fantastic British fans, the partners and all our guests on what will be a very busy weekend.

I have always found Silverstone to be an amazing race track, and I won there in Formula Renault 3.5 back in 2009, so I’m really happy that it is the venue for my team’s home race next weekend. I love the fantastic fast corners, particularly from Copse through Becketts and on to Stowe. I am now eager to see the new aero package results on the track. It is quite a comprehensive step for the team and the result of a really collaborative effort. Having turned the corner a little bit in the race in Valencia, I hope we can continue this way and that the package will have a positive contribution. I am optimistic for a good weekend because this is the only time the guys who always work back at our team base in Banbury will get to the see the cars in action; it will be nice to give them a happy reward for their relentless hard work as this is ‘their race’! It is also good news that Timo will be back with us next weekend. Off-track it is going to be very busy with plenty of PR activity with the partners and our fans, but I know we can expect a massive reception from them, which will give the team an extra boost.

There’s no place like home when it comes to racing. We visit some fantastic venues all over the world, but the opportunity to race on home asphalt is a special one and we’ll be grabbing it with both hands next weekend when we compete at Silverstone. Although this will be our third home race, it is the first since we moved our day to day operations to Banbury from South Yorkshire. We are now based just a little over 17 miles from Silverstone, which means we really are racing in our own backyard. We have a fairly significant upgrade for this race, comprising a new rear wing, exhausts, floor and side pods. I would have to describe this as our ‘first proper wind-tunnel generated upgrade of the season’; we’ve had some smaller parts in Malaysia and China, and a few small iterations recently, but this is the first fully developed package that is not just a modification of existing elements. That is a big result in itself, aside from the performance step we hope it will bring us, as it means we have caught up with ourselves in terms of the diligent way in which we have approached and developed our Technical Partnership. We look forward to seeing what this brings, both at Silverstone and at Duxford Airfield beforehand, when we will be integrating the developments into our correlation programme. Duxford is also the first of our Test Driver Maria De Villota’s scheduled track days. She has been waiting patiently all year for this date to come around, so we look forward to seeing her in the car for the first time. There’s so much to say about the whole Silverstone experience; the fans are incredibly knowledgable and enthusiastic and it is a real delight to have their support. We will also be putting on a big show for our Partners, who also turn out in force for this event. In turn, we hope to reward them, and our whole team, with a great weekend on the race track. With Timo back to strength and Charles looking to build on a great performance in Valencia, we have good reason to be excited about what our home race can bring.