Straight From Monaco

Hi Everyone!

It’s so good to be able to write you after scoring my first points this season.

You might think it’s a joke, but a great burden was taken off my shoulders. The lack of points did not affect me when I was driving my car, but it’s really bad to put a lot of effort into something and not get any credit for it at the end of the race. But, this is history and now I think things are going to get much better for the team.

Well, speaking of the Monaco race, you will see there was much more to it than what was shown on TV.

The start was okay as I managed able to maintain my position. I had to brake at the first corner and I was able to overtake Nakagima and Button through the outside. With that move, I became 11th, because Kovalainen’s car failed to move and stood still in its place in the grid.

When we got to Lowes corner, which is quite a slow one, my anti-stall, a device that doesn’t allow the car to stall when the rpm is too low, kicked in. That’s why I was overtaken by Nakajima, Button and Coulthard.

During the 7th lap, the rain was hard and there was no visibility. On top of that, we had intermediate tires so the situation was not very promising. That was when Coulthard crashed and I passed really close to him.

At the re-start, it was still raining a lot and I lost a position to Trulli, who had wet tires. I must say that this is when I lost a lot of time. I tried everything I could, but there was no space to overtake him again and only when he went back to the pit stop I was able to get my real pace back.
At this time, I was about to be lapped by Hamilton and I noticed that he couldn’t catch up with me. That only meant that my pace was really good and that was nice to know.

On my pit stop lap, Kovalainen hit Button right in front of me, and I lost time dodging them. I also lost some time during my stop because I had to put air in the engine. That made me lose a position to Vettel who was 5 seconds behind.

It was a pity, but scoring was awesome.

And now there’s Canada: a track and a country that I love!

I can hardly wait!

Take care,

Rubens Barrichello