Kazuki's Shanghai Blog: Sunday

Posted on Monday 20 Oct 2008 and tagged with kazuki, china, blog, shanghai.

One thing that I don’t understand about the Chinese Grand Prix is why more people didn’t do a one-stop strategy. It was the obvious thing to do if you were starting outside the top 10, yet only me, Coulthard and Glock stopped the once.

My car was very heavy at the start and I lost a position away from the line as a result. But I quickly found a good rhythm and was able to set consistent lap times. I made my only pitstop on lap 31, from which I rejoined in 16th place, and I drove flat-out for the remainder of the race. For the last 16 laps I had Sebastien Bourdais right on my gearbox, but I made no mistakes and was pleased to come away with 12th.

I’m now heading back to Europe for a few days, prior to leaving for Brazil next weekend. I’m looking forward to being in Oxford for a few days because I haven’t been home for more than a month and it will be good to catch up with a few friends. I’ve also got a few things to do at the factory, so I’ll pop in there at the end of the week to see my engineers and to see how next year’s car is coming along.

I made my Grand Prix debut at Interlagos last year and find it hard to believe that a year has passed already. Everything happens so quickly in F1! Let’s hope the car is as quick this year as it was in ’07.