My body is back to normal as I prepare for the long flight to China and the fourth round of the championship. Following the crash in Estoril the bruising was deep and took around a week to come out which made sleeping difficult but I’m back to one hundred per cent fitness and I can’t wait for the race in Shanghai.
I love the Shanghai track and had a good result there last year when I finished eighth. I also had a great qualifying session and started from the second row in fifth place despite the lack of speed on the fastest straight in the championship calendar.
That long straight will certainly not be a problem for my Aprilia that has never been lacking top speed. It’s the rear end grip that we will be working on to improve. Ever since the Estoril race I’ve been thinking 24/7 on how we can improve things and I’ve spoken to the team who are just the same. They are a great bunch of guys who have been fretting and planning the whole time to work out just how we can find that extra bit of grip. At this level of competition a tenth of a second gained here and there makes all the difference and so we never stop thinking about how we can find that advantage, however small.
I’m 11th in the championship after the Estoril crash and it will be hard to get back into contention but never say never because we have six grands prix in the next couple of months. We start in China on Sunday and then onto Le Mans in France where I took my first ever podium last year. In some ways this is where the season really starts and I must start catching those leaders before they pull away at the front before our summer break at the end of July. If I can get on a roll with so many races in such a short space o time, who knows?
