Spa is, without a doubt, one of the best races on the calendar and it is also one of my favourite tracks. It’s remained pretty much unchanged for a number of years now; it’s one of the classic tracks on the calendar and it has a lot of character. Of course Eau Rouge is the most famous part of the track, and where I’ve got good memories of racing wheel-to-wheel with Fernando.

To be honest, I can’t wait to get there after Silverstone. We were all so excited and keen to get the first race out of the way and pulling off a clean weekend with qualifying and the race, which went better than we expected. Going to Spa so soon after the first race is good for us to try and keep a bit of momentum.

Spa is actually a very famous venue for endurance racing and it has hosted some of the great classics there like the 1.000km of Spa. A track like that lets the sports car breath a little bit and you can really open them up and test them to their full potential.

Obviously we will have a lot less downforce than in an F1 car and the car is a bit heavier. I need to respect Eau Rouge more than ever because it became quite straightforward in an F1 car. I think the speed on the way in will be quite similar but to position the sports car will be a bit trickier through there.
I am certainly looking forward to seeing what the car is like in the middle sector where I will need to be a bit more patient, making sure that I keep a good rhythm and position the car. Having driven there in an F1 car for so many years at high speed, I’ve got to make sure that I build up my pace with the heavier car and lower down force. The top speed in the car should be very competitive, even competitive in relation to F1 and I think our car will be a bit more suited to Spa than it was to Silverstone.

The weather will play a role too, it looks like a cold weekend, but we could have a repeat of what we had at Silverstone and we have got to try and make all the right decisions again.

In Silverstone the dialogue in the team between all the drivers, the engineers and Weissach was phenomenal and we worked well together searching for areas in which  to improve which is a no brainer as we’ve only done one race. There is a bit of excitement in the camp that we achieved a podium at our first attempt but we have our feet on the ground. We haven’t had two cars finish yet and we’d like to do that and get the 14 and 20 cars home.

I learnt a lot in my first WEC race. It was long time before I got into the car and there’s much I can do when the other drivers are out on track. It’s important for me not to be wasting too much energy on some of those areas where I know Timo and Brendon can do the job. It’s important to relax and make sure I am ready for when I am driving the car. Also I learnt a lot with the traffic and dealing with back markers, which was the first time I had to do that in anger. The amount of debris on the track was something else to get used to; there is a lot more debris in endurance racing than in F1. I also executed my first live pit stop and carried out a driver change with Brendon. Although these small things don’t sound much, they  are quite important to get me up to speed.