Asian Motor Sports

I took another double victory in Monterrey, Mexico, and racked up our twelfth and thirteenth wins from eighteen races this season. I was able to start from pole in both races as I was promoted to pole position in the sprint race after South Africa was penalised for a technical infringement.

I am so happy to have won today, starting with the sprint race. This year now, I have scored seven wins for the team. It feels really good. I made a mistake in the first chicane and Switzerland Neel Jani almost passed me, but I kept the control and my sprint race was trouble-free. I could feel that Neel Jani was certainly watching how I was doing and was ready to overtake at any second.

Throughout the races we suffered from a lack of grip. The car worked well, but it was quite demanding driving on this slippery surface.

As for my second win and race, this feature race was quite straight-forward, though we did have some concerns that the weather might change. As part of our strategy, I was the first to pit and my team mate Nicolas Lapierre even helped change my tyres! He replaced Daniel one of our mechanics, who hurt badly his hand yesterday. Team A1 Holland Verstappen was pushing quite hard behind me, but I maintained a comfortable gap over him. The pace car disrupted my strategy though and I was afraid that I would have problems with the rain 8 laps to the end. But it did not fall heavily. I’m so happy with today’s results ­ it was fantastic to win in front of so many of our supporters here from the French community based in Monterrey. The all had brought a flag and I was really proud to race for France in frot of them. I am of course very pleased with today’s double win and fantastic results in both races. The championship is not over and we remain fully focussed for the next round. The pressure is still on and we will continue fighting like we have done all season. I hope that Nicolas Lapierre who is going to drive in Laguna Seca can wrap the Championship for the team on Mar 12, 2006. (Via Premat’s Home page)