Straight From Turkey

Dear Friends,

The weekend was well planned, but not really productive.
Beating the record was awesome, of course. As I have said before, I have seen many drivers come and go and I am still here, after 16 years. And the best of it, in my opinion, is my desire to keep driving.
My desire for winning and for high speed are the same or even greater than when I started my career.
When I say the weekend was not very productive, I am referring to the plans we had for the race in Turkey.
If my car hadn’t crashed in the pit boxes in Barcelona, I would have finished in 6th and Button in 7th, according to the team’s calculations.
Since the track in Turkey has always been good for Honda, we were expecting both cars to finish the race in the scoring zone.
On Friday, we did pretty well with a full tank, but Saturday was not so good. It was a cold day with little adherence and the car was still not fast on the straights, so all I was able to do was 12th in the starting grid.
Many people ask me why I don’t start off with little gas in these situations? Starting off with a light car, makes you have to overtake because you will certainly go the pit stop before other drivers. But how is it possible to overtake a Williams car, for example, which is 10k faster than us at the end of a straight? It’s practically impossible! Due to these facts we chose using a full tank, expecting to gain some positions in the pit box.
In the chaos of the start, Button passed me, but I was still fine in the race.
On the 27th lap, Sebastien Bourdais spun and my team called me back to the pit box because there was a possibility that the safety car would have to go on the track. If that had happened I would have gained a lot of positions.
However, this was not what happened and I ended up in 14th place.
What was really worthwhile was the 257th race celebration with lots of drivers and team managers who were there to honor me.
My family was also with me, which made me really happy!
See you at the 258th!

Take care,

Rubens Barrichello