Kazuki's Chinese Blog: Sunday

Posted on Sunday 19 Apr 2009 and tagged with kazuki, blog, china, shanghai.

The Chinese Grand Prix was one of the toughest races of my career. There was a lot of standing water on the track, so the car was aquaplaning all over the place and the visibility was very poor due to the spray. It was a lottery out there!

My pace was okay at the start of the race, even though I’d been hoping that the Safety Car would stay out for longer than it did due to the conditions. I then lost a lot of time behind the second Safety Car because it picked up Timo Glock instead of race leader Sebastian Vettel, which meant that the cars ahead of Glock got what was effectively a free pitstop. That penalised Nico and me a lot.

Towards the end of the race there was a lot of debris on the track and I picked up a slow puncture, followed by a proper puncture. I pitted to get those wheels replaced, but my gearbox was damaged and I had to retire. It was a disappointing end to a difficult race.

Now, though, I’m already focusing on Bahrain. We expect the FW31 to be competitive there and I can’t wait to get started. I’m heading to Dubai tomorrow morning for a bit of hot weather training, before making the final hop to Bahrain on Thursday. At least the weather should be dry there...