As we are now in the off season, it is time to reflect on the year and look at the highs and lows and learn from each experience.

When I take a summary of the whole year, it was a great one for me. Signing for Highcroft to compete in the ALMS and to be part of the new Acura sportscar programme was mega. For me, it was a joy to be back in a prototype and not look in my mirrors so much, to be able to race up front for overall victories.

My driving partner for the year was the experienced and super nice Stefan Johansson – or Steven Johnson as he is known. The combination of us together was the right balance for a young team, and I feel that we were able to bring our years of experience together to race hard, but have fun doing it. This, for sure, is what we did.

However, seeing the team grow so quickly in such a short period of time was both good and not so good. Good because you could see a birth of a new and exciting outfit put together by team owner Duncan Dayton, with so many really talented people working together. But it always takes time for a team to gel as a real working group and it did take the whole year for that to happen. Stefan said as the season started that 'it takes three years for a team to come together' - and he should know as he used to own one!

The other great part of the Highcroft adventure was working with Honda, HPD and Acura. My dad worked with Honda back in the 1960s when he won the Formula Two championship, and has been connected with them since Honda got into road racing for the first time. I have always wanted to race for them in my career and this was the perfect place for our relationship to start.

Having now worked with Honda Performance Development, I can see why they win so much. The passion, focus and determination for winning, combined with very talented people they have there, is great chemistry for success.

The other part of this story which is pretty cool is the renewed relationship with Nick Wirth of Simtek. We worked together in 1994 doing the Formula One season in an under-funded team, and it was a tough year. The team had no real money and the car wasn't quick enough either, but we forged a strong relationship in that year.

Losing my team-mate, Roland Ratzenberger, at Imola was a difficult thing for all of us to deal with, but, 14 years on, we are together again and what a different situation we find ourselves in. We have both got older, wiser and much better at our jobs, and it has been great working, not only with Nick, but all the guys at Wirth Research. What these guys did to a standard Courage was amazing...

When we went to the first race at Sebring, the team was about three months behind, as we'd got the cars late and the team was still coming together. Still, we finished the race and showed great speed as well. We then went onto St Petersburg and we found ourselves in a great position to win but for radio communication to go down at a crucial point.