In his latest update for Crash.net, rising 250 GP star Chaz Davies reviews round three of the 2005 world championship; the inaugural Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai, which saw the Aprilia Germany privateer lose out on a potential top five finish through no fault of his own...
We flew to China on Monday afternoon from Birmingham Airport. We had to stop over and change planes in Dubai which is where we met with the team who had come from Frankfurt.
The first flight was about 7 hours and from Dubai to Shanghai was about 8 hours. We got into China on Tuesday, 11am local time. From there, there was a bus that took us to our hotel in the centre of Shanghai which took an hour.
In China people who are not "Chinese" are not allowed to drive so the team hired two minibus type things, 10 hours a day, from Wednesday to Sunday night. One for all the mechanics to go early in the morning and one for me, my dad, my team mate and his manager.
On Tuesday the plan was to just try and stay awake for the day to get into the time zone. On Wednesday we went to the circuit in the afternoon. The journey from our hotel in the centre of Shanghai, to the track on the outskirts, took about an hour on average. On a good run 45mins but with traffic about 1 hour 25mins.
Everybody was impressed with the circuit facilities and the whole layout of the place. It was done properly. The 'offices' that the teams and riders use for getting changed in etc were very impressive. They were all set over water and the bathrooms in the buildings were like a 5* hotel!
Me, my dad and my team mate, Martin, walked the circuit which looked good. The back straight was as everybody has described it, massive. The circuit looked good, and difficult. The first corner and the corner on to the back straight looked the most difficult with different possibilities with lines.
