I suppose it only really hit home just what I've achieved when I arrived back at Heathrow late on Monday evening. Terminal Two was almost deserted at 10.15 pm apart from around 15 members of the Smith family, who gave me a fantastic welcome home after two incredible weeks.

I'd left Malaysia at 2am on Monday morning and flown to London via Dubai. It was straight on the plane to Paris for a special Eurosport interview and then a scary mototaxi ride back to the airport to catch the last plane back to London. That pillion ride to the airport was scarier than either of the races in Australia and Malaysia and such was the rush I still had on the television make-up when I arrived back for the Heathrow welcome.

I'm so proud to be the first British rider to finish runner-up in any class of a grand prix World Championship since the great Barry Sheene 31 years ago, but you will not be totally surprised that I'm also just a bit niggled that I didn't win the title.

After the disappointments in the Sachsenring and Donington we sat down and tried to work out just where our weak spots were causing us the problems. We found faults both with the bike and the rider. Since then I've had a fourth place and then five consecutive podium finishes, including three second places and my riding has come on leaps and bounds. My performances in those last two races in Australia and Malaysia were as good as my victories in Spain and Italy but I finished second on both occasions.

It was the lethal weapon of my team-mate and World Champion Julian Simon that kept off that top step – his late braking. He gets the bike stopped better than anybody else which makes it so hard to beat him in the two last lap confrontations we had.

As I expect you could tell from the television interview after the race in Australia, I was really disappointed to finish second after Julian overtook me with less than half a lap to go. I did not realise just how much I wanted to delay him winning the title until I was on the grid for the start. I was in a complete trance and had no nerves. I just knew I had to beat him to keep the Championship alive.

I gave it absolutely everything and was flat out to the chequered flag but he took me on that last lap. In the early part of the race my lap times were over one second faster than last year which showed the progress we'd made. In qualifying I crashed at the Honda hairpin which in some ways was a good thing because it really lit up a light bulb in my brain about taking care at that particular corner in the race.

You could not imagine the difference in the weather when we arrived in Malaysia after Australia. It was in the high 30's at Sepang which meant all that hard work and training really paid off. The week started well when I won the MotoGP karting race at the kart track at the circuit. It was such an enjoyable event and as you can imagine very very competitive. Not only was it good to beat my two wheel rivals on four wheels but also a very welcome change to stand on the top step of the podium and not the second place.

That success really made the weekend roll into one and I was fastest in the first 125cc session on Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning I worked on a really good race set-up and with it all sorted was looking for a quick qualifying lap in the afternoon. Coming into the left hander that brings you onto the start and finish straight I just gassed it too early and highsided off.