Unfortunately for me Barcelona is not such a lucky circuit.
The first time I went there was in 2006, and when I walked into the garage I found somebody else's name on my car. Then last year my team-mate, Mike Conway, pushed me off at the first corner! I like the city very much, but for sure I don't have so many good memories of the track, and it looks like this will continue for another year now...
I have to say though that I had a lot of confidence heading to Spain. Our last test at Paul Ricard gave us a lot of solutions to some problems we had with the new car, and we knew that the pace should be good from the earlier test in Barcelona, so I felt confident that I could put my bad luck behind me at last. The weather was good when we arrived for the weekend, and in free practice I was fourth even with a small gearbox problem, so I felt very relaxed, but then we went to qualifying and everything started to go wrong
From the first time I left the box in qualifying I knew there was a problem with the upshift: that's not great but it's still okay, because with that you are only losing a few tenths. However, it was soon getting worse and then I started to lose the downshift. My last lap was still good - if you look at the times I set my fastest first and second sectors - but then the downshift cut and I had just one gear only in the third sector, so I had to retire. The time would probably have been good enough for about fourth or fifth, but instead I had to start from fourteenth.
My engineer was really unhappy afterwards, because he always wants to make the perfect car, and the mechanics stripped the gearbox as soon as the car returned to the paddock. Unfortunately for them, they had a lot of trouble finding out what caused the problem: they could fix the gearbox very easily, but couldn't work out how to stop it happening again. The boys were working on it until 4.30 the next morning, and then were back at the circuit around 7.00 to keep going! It was amazing to find out how much dedication they have at ART, and I must say a big thank you for all of their work.
Eventually they found the solution (I won't say what it was, just in case our competitors are reading!), and they told me that the problem won't happen again. It made me feel good, because I have complete confidence in the team, and I knew that I would have a good car again and would be able to move up in the race.
![Luca Filippi - ART Grand Prix [pic credit: GP2 Series]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/432047.jpg)
