The fans were just ecstatic, and what was amazing was that at least 20,000 people showed up. They were hanging from lampposts, and I have a picture of everyone in the trees with so many people up there you couldn’t see the branches! It was absolutely stunning. I’ve been to other exhibitions before of
F1 cars and rally cars, but this was by far the biggest one I’ve ever seen and it was all for Javi. People in Asturias think he is a fantastic driver and they love him for his character, because he’s very polite and always open to everyone. It was a really fantastic show, and not only for Javi but for GP2 in general because it really put into perspective that people know GP2.
The 2007 series finale was held in Valencia at the end of last month. We don’t normally differentiate between tracks – the only exception to that is maybe Monaco because the logistics there are so difficult and it’s a real headache, but apart from that we treat every track the same, be it in Spain or elsewhere. It is true we have more guests and more sponsor work to do in Spain, but that’s really up to the management; it doesn’t really affect things from a technical point-of-view or that of the drivers.
Valencia is a track that both Javi and Marcos know quite well, and you could similarly see that reflected in the results of Andy Soucek and Borja Garcia, so obviously it did help the drivers playing on home soil. We didn’t look at it from that angle though; we saw it as ‘we’ve got to get these final points to push both the team and Javi further up in the standings’. That was our main objective. We wanted to finish fifth overall; it didn’t happen, but sixth is good enough nonetheless and we worked very hard for that.
![Alfonso de Orleans Borbon - Racing Engineering [pic credit: GP2 media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/163611.jpg)
