What happened in the finale in Dubai was obviously frustrating – it was a race that would have been harder to lose than to win – but at the end of the day it’s a team sport. Sometimes I make mistakes, sometimes they make mistakes, but we are all in it together and I have to thank the team for all the hard work they put in.
The highlights were races like Bahrain, when I came back from twelfth to fourth. That wasn’t very easy, but it was a good fight and showed that we had good pace. There was also the race in Malaysia where I made a mistake and ended up starting 20th on the grid for the sprint; that was so hard, so to finish in the top eight with the fastest lap was good. I think we had some good performances and I grew a lot from those days.
Overall it was pretty good for me in terms of experience; it was just unfortunate that the results didn’t really show our performance. I got to know the team better and work with them and they could get to know me as well. It also enabled me to get some more experience of racing, which has certainly helped me towards my European season, and the team are even more motivated now in the main championship.
Karun Chandhok is a great team-mate and has a lot to offer. He helps a lot in terms of set-up and has been very helpful within the team. Everybody has a good relationship together and there is a good environment inside the team to work in. That helps a lot to bring everybody forward.
Racing during the winter months also kept me sharp for the beginning of the European campaign, and considering the amount of bad luck we had in the Asia Series, the Barcelona weekend was pretty good. I was happy about being able to have a good performance and not have too many problems. We had a few technical issues with the car, but still, the price we paid for them was quite low compared to all the problems we had in Asia.
