Nico's Spa Blog: Sunday

Posted on Tuesday 01 Sep 2009 and tagged with rosberg.

Prior to today’s Belgian Grand Prix, I hadn’t finished a race lower than fifth since the Monaco Grand Prix in May. As a result, my eighth place at Spa-Francorchamps wasn’t such a good result for the team, but we got the absolute maximum from the car today.

We’ve discovered this weekend that the FW31 isn’t that competitive in low downforce trim. I ended Friday practice in 19th place, so we were forced to make a lot of changes overnight on Friday to ensure I was more competitive in qualifying and the race. That turned out to be the case, but I had to drive 44 qualifying laps on Sunday afternoon to grab the final points position.

I crossed the line 0.7s behind Rubens Barrichello, whose Brawn started smoking in the closing stages. Initially I thought his engine was about to blow, but he wasn’t that much slower in a straight line and I think it was probably just an oil leak. It made visibility pretty bad for me, especially when you consider that my visor was already covered in dead flies, but I didn’t make a mistake and brought the car home.

There might be no in-season testing this year, but I’ve still got a busy week ahead of me. On Wednesday I’m at Silverstone for a sponsor day, along with my team-mate Kazuki Nakajima and our test driver Nico Hulkenberg. I then go to Berlin on Thursday for a PR day with Philips, which should be fun because Berlin is a beautiful city.

It’s not all work, however. I’ll then head home to Monaco for a weekend in the sunshine! I hope the weather’s good wherever you are…