AT&T Williams F1

The guys at ATT Williams have worked really hard in recent weeks to improve the all-round performance of the FW29 and their efforts paid dividends at Istanbul Park. We were really competitive all weekend and it was very satisfying to finish seventh.

I was on the pace in all the practice sessions and I put together a good lap in Q2 to make it through to Q3 for the seventh time this year. While eighth on the grid was more than I'd expected before the start of the weekend, I was a bit frustrated to be only 0.010s behind my old GP2 adversary Heikki Kovalainen.

In the race I didn't make any mistakes and it was great to beat Robert Kubica fair and square. That we were able to finish ahead of a BMW is an indication of how much the FW29 has improved on a medium-to-fast type of track. At Magny Cours, which is a similar type of track, I finished 30 seconds behind Kubica.

The two points I gained in Turkey for seventh place moved me two positions up the World Championship table, so it was a good weekend all round.

From Istanbul I'm heading home for a few days prior to testing at Monza on Thursday. It's an exciting track to drive because we reach very high speeds - and that makes it quite dangerous because there isn't much run-off - but there is a lot of history to the track and the Italian fans are very enthusiastic. I enjoy driving there.

It will also be great to actually do some testing because I haven't driven the car away from a GP weekend since the beginning of July. My ATT Williams team-mate Alex Wurz and I share the testing duties 50:50 and it was my turn to miss the test after the European Grand Prix. We then had the three-week summer break after Hungary, during which there was a testing ban, so it will be good to get some testing mileage at Monza.

The summer break was good for other reasons, however. I rented a house in Ibiza where I spent a week with a few friends and it was great to relax in the sunshine. We went to the beach, we went out at night and we generally did the sorts of things you'd expect a group of 22-year-olds to do. Great fun!

Actually, I couldn't relax too much because I still kept abreast of developments at the factory and I continued with my training programme. Istanbul Park is one of only two anti-clockwise tracks on this year's calendar, which makes it particularly hard on the neck. The muscles are conditioned to cope with right-handers, so I worked hard on the left side, even when I was on the party island.

We have some great tracks coming up on the calendar. Monza and Spa are back-to-back, which gives us two classic circuits in quick succession. While I've never raced an F1 car at Spa, I tested there last month and I know it's going to be very exciting. Let's hope we can continue to score points at both races.

Until next time,

Nico