Nelson had a strong drive, rising through the field. Tell us about his race.

"It was a strong drive and by the end of the race he had made up seven positions, which was as strong a performance as pretty much anyone. But he certainly found those early laps extremely difficult due to the poor visibility and he told me after the race that he had to look upwards at the trees to get his reference points, which is incredibly scary. Again we opened the opportunities for him by running a very long strategy, but he used it properly and it positioned him very favourably for the switch to the standard wet tyre. So it was a good race for him and he's continued his education in Formula 1 and will be stronger for it."

This weekend's race is at another new venue in Singapore with lots of unknowns. What can the team achieve there?

"Singapore is going to be very different to Monza. It's a very slow, high downforce track and looks like it will have the second-lowest average speed after Monaco. In terms of the unknowns of night racing, it's not something that particularly concerns me and I don't think we will even recognise that it's dark because the facilities will be that good. We will face all the challenges of a new track, just like we did in Valencia last month, but we are used to that and go there well prepared."

Will it feel strange to be going to work late in the afternoon?

"I think it will have an impact on us and perhaps the biggest challenge will be managing the human performance of the team. We've been working with our medical guys to make sure we are all prepared for it because travelling to the Far East is always quite hard and taxing on our bodies. The fact that we will be more or less operating on a European time zone will add a further dimension and confuse our body clocks even more. It's not something I'm worried about, but we need to keep it in mind as we're well aware that it's asking a lot of our mechanics and engineers. When we look back on Singapore, I think we will be talking mainly about how we coped with the logistical challenge.

Will the team have updates to the R28 for Singapore?

"We will have the final updates for the R28 in Singapore, including a new front wing. In previous years when we have been working on the new car in the wind tunnel, we have always hoped to see developments that we can use on the current car, but it's not the case this year because the aerodynamics for next season are so different. So this really is the end of the updates, other than any changes that may be made for reliability."

D.B. © CAPSIS International