I am writing this on the way back from Brazil on a pretty bumpy flight and I have to say that Brazil was an adventure of highs and lows! I travelled from Dublin to Berlin, then on to Milan, Sao Paolo and then finally Curitiba, it was a very long journey and pretty tiring. Luckily I had the good company of my brother, Aran, for the long haul. I got to Curitiba on Tuesday evening so I could give myself a little extra time to get over the travelling.
I can’t emphasise enough how great the Brazilian People are, a really superb nation and country. I loved it over there, the people were so accommodating and friendly and most of all hugely enthusiastic about the WTCC coming to Brazil. I was staying in a nice hotel called Bourbon in the centre of Curitiba. It was good to be able to see some of the city on my days off. Curitiba is one of the wealthier cities in Brazil and is around 450km south of Sao Paolo.
On the Thursday before the race I had to attend an autograph session in the centre of the city and with it raining and pretty cold, as it is now winter in Brazil, I didn’t expect much of a turn out, but I was wrong! Many people came and were so happy to be able to get close to the drivers; it was good to see that the championship is being well promoted and very well received by the public. That evening I was invited to a cocktail party and ceremony by the Mayor of Curitiba in a beautiful country club. It was an enjoyable evening and all the drivers turned up to further promote the Championship.
In free practice on Friday I only did a hand-full of laps as I had some more gearbox difficulties, but my team fitted a completely new gearbox to the car for Saturday and that was the end of the problems. Qualifying was difficult for me as I only had one run on new rubber. I had set my car up very stiff and I knew that I would only have two laps to qualify; it was a risky move and it did not really pay off as I had expected. I caught some traffic and that ended my chanced off a top 15 qualifying.
