Kazuki's Japanese Blog: Sunday

Posted on Tuesday 06 Oct 2009 and tagged with blog, japan, kazuki, nakajima.

When you start 15th at Suzuka, where overtaking is difficult, it’s extremely hard to finish in the points. Knowing this, we opted for a one-stop strategy to be different to the people around me on the grid; to put me out of sync.

To move up the order, however, I needed a Safety Car early in the race. When that didn’t happen, I knew I was in for a long afternoon and came home where I started, in 15th position. There was a Safety Car period late in the race, following Jaime Alguersuari’s accident, but it was too late to impact on the finishing order because there was just a four-lap dash to the flag.

With the next race taking place in Brazil, it doesn’t make sense for me to return to Europe this week. I’m going to stay in Japan until next weekend, when I’ll fly to Sao Paulo via the USA. I’ve got a couple of PR activities to do in Tokyo before then, but I’ll also use the time to catch up with friends while I’m there.

I made my Formula One debut at Interlagos in 2007 and I’m looking forward to returning there next week. It’s a good track, but it’s also relatively short and that has quite an effect on qualifying. Just 0.2s can be the difference between two rows on the grid, so I’ll have to be inch-perfect if I’m to start from a competitive position. But that’s the kind of challenge I enjoy!

Thanks for your support and see you all again soon,