Coming to Spa for the first time in many years, I was so looking forward to driving on one of the best circuits in the World. The circuit and the race is one of the great events and I was looking forward to winning again like I did in 1991 with Nissan driving the Skyline GTR.

When practice got going, it was a little confusing to see that we were a good second or more off the pace. After the car showed speed everywhere we went, I thought we would have it at Spa, but we didn't.

We worked hard to find grip and balance all through practice and qualifying. The only time we looked good was at night or in the wet.

I was out in the wet and we were trying some development tyres from Michelin, these were pretty good as I was a few seconds quicker than anyone else. We qualified third and seventh with Pedro Lamy and Stephane Sarrazin doing the duties. Our time got thrown out because Stephane didn't stop at the light to weigh the car. So then it rained. I went out and started the tyre work and then coming in the pits I also missed the lights. Our team manager George was spitting chips as this was not on the teams agenda. So Stef and I were in the dog house for a bit! As it turned out we put in another time by Darren Turner that put us back up to seventh when it dried.

We started the race on wets while others put intermediates on. Before the start it rained, so we decided to play it safe as it was a long race. After the first lap we were first and second while the non-wet cars fell well behind. I was behind Peter Kox and I felt I was quicker and wanted to get past. I stuck my nose in a few places to let him know I was their when George the Boss got on the radio and said calm down. Shit... in the dog house again! I relayed some messages back to say I was being held up and then Peter let me past.

I then took off into a good lead to then hear the other non-wet cars were getting quicker. We stayed out too long on wets and then we were passed by the quicker cars. We dived in for slicks for a while and then it rained again. This time I stayed out on slicks......wrong. I lost a ton of time and I lost a lap......dog house again!

As night came, we started to pick up some real pace and Stephane and Darren and I were driving the wheels off the car. We caught up and was challenging for the lead and then Darren and a slower car collided... dog house Darren!

This dropped us back a bit. The other car lost a lot of time with a brake peddle problem. This was going to be our problem soon as we were fighting back and doing really well, we then had the same problem… game over.

We got it fixed but we lost way to much time. It was a case to just finish the race, which we did.

As this is still a development year, we are still finding things to fix and work on. This is normal, but as the year got off to a great start, it is now frustrating. Still, that's racing. I hope the team make the decision to go to the Petit Le Mans and Laguna because those would be really good to do and see old friends.


DB