At the last moment, Super Nova Racing called me to do the final GP2 Main Series race in Abu Dhabi. The team manager said to me, "Pack your helmet and book your flights mate…you're in for Abu Dhabi."

FREE PRACTICE
At the end of the 45 minute free practice session I finished in P10. The car was good, everything was fine, and we were really positive for the qualifying session. However, before qualifying began, I received a 10 grid position penalty for Race 1. This was a result of a very strange situation that happened during the free practice. Basically, we waited to enter the track for 10 minutes. When I exited the pit lane, there were yellow flags displayed in the last sector. Because it was the first 5 laps of my run, I was off the pace by at least 12 seconds from bedding in a new set of brakes while on new tyres. During these installation laps, as I was extremely slow on the circuit (from bedding brakes and also from seeing the yellow flags in the last sector) it was very difficult to find a reference of how fast I was going in each individual sector. I was trying not to improve my sector time in the yellow flag area because I knew I would get a penalty for improving. However, going so slow (basically in safety mode) in these installation laps made it nearly impossible not to improve by .5 seconds. In the end, though I was 11.5 seconds off the pace at that time, I received a penalty for improving my last sector time by .5 seconds.

QUALIFYING
At the end of qualifying I finished P11. With the first set of new tyres I was P5. Then with the second set of new tyres I did not improve, so I finished P11. Then with the penalty, I was forced to start P21.

RACE 1
I made a very nice start and I immediately gained three positions. From P18 we decided to pit very early, on lap 6, to have clean track to push hard. After everyone made their pit stops, I was then in P13. My decision to pit early was a good one, because I had gained 5 positions. From P13 I was able to pass two more cars and finish the race in P11.

RACE 2
I had too much wheel spin at the start, so I lost two positions immediately. Then on the first lap, I risked a bit, and I was able to pass back to P11, my original position. In the middle of the race, I then passed for P10. Unfortunately, at this moment of the race I received a penalty. This penalty was similar to the situation in free practice, and the situation was basically impossible to avoid. I received a stop & go penalty and eventually I finished P23.

In the end, this weekend was destroyed from the strange penalty in free practice. The team and I had a great potential to finish very well.

I thank Super Nova Racing for giving me this opportunity to race in Abu Dhabi. It was a pleasure to work with everyone from the team.