It was quite an eventful first lap. I was on the dirty side of the grid, but to be honest I did the best I could with the grip level I had. It was not enough for me to keep my position as Di Resta got ahead of me and I passed Schumacher who had a problem after Turn 1. There was some chaos at Turn 4 and I was three wide with Di Resta and Senna going into Turn 5, but I was on the outside and had to back off. I tried to push hard after that during my first stint, but I did not have a very good feeling on the Prime and was a bit off the pace. After I made my single stop to fit the Option, the car felt much better and was able to get into a good rhythm and was pushing and pushing. But it was not enough to catch Di Resta and towards the end I had to defend from Kobayashi. So, not exactly an exciting race but we can try again in just a few days in Abu Dhabi.

Immediately after the lights went out, I was caught up in a bit of a sandwich and had to brake harder and earlier than I wanted to. That meant I locked my wheels and made contact with the back of Schumacher’s car. It broke my front wing, so I had to pit and my race was more or less over after that. I continued to push as hard as I could, trying to do good lap times, but the performance of my car has not really been that great this weekend. In one way, it’s a race to forget, but in another sense, we have to see what we can learn from it, so that we arrive in better shape in Abu Dhabi. We have seen that, even when races are just one week apart, it doesn’t mean one’s performance is going to be the same at both of them, so we can be optimistic about the next round.

Both our drivers lost the chance to score points after difficulties on the first lap. In Jean-Eric’s case it was more serious as he was involved in a collision with Schumacher and we had to bring him in to change the front wing, which dropped him down the order, while Daniel lost a place to Di Resta off the line. The overall pace of our car was not too bad during the rest of the race, running at the same rate as Di Resta and Senna. However, both our guys were stuck in the traffic and that meant an end to our run of three consecutive points finishes. If we can find a good set-up in a few days time in Abu Dhabi, then maybe we can aim for another top ten finish there.