I’m still back home in New Zealand as I write this and, aside from not achieving what I wanted to on the track in Hamilton, I have had a great time.

Overall I thought the Hamilton race was a very successful event. There was some really entertaining racing around a great circuit. It’s not too often you can pass freely on a street circuit, but I was able to pass plenty of cars over the course of the weekend. It also says something about the car we had, but bad luck seemed to be around the apex of every corner.

I think we ended up in 12th for the weekend which wasn’t a bad result when you look at it, but I feel it could have been better.

Qualifying was shocking as a brake issue put me out of it on my flying lap. By the time it was fixed and I got back out the track was wet, ending my hopes of getting to a good spot on the grid.

In the first race I had moved through the field quite well until I got slapped with a drive through penalty for a pit lane infringement, later compounded by a tyre puncture. Mine certainly wasn’t the only one of the weekend and more often than not they were caused by bolts on the chicane tyre stacks ripping at the tyres when we made contact with them.

The second race came and went as I moved back up to 20th and then in the third race I was driving really fast on my way up to as high as sixth when I cannoned into Tony D’Alberto and received my second drive through penalty of the weekend.

I had no qualms about that one, it was my fault. I think Tony braked a bit earlier than I thought he would and I hit him. It was an unfortunate mistake from me.

At least my weekend was better than Jamie Whincup’s who had  his weekend wrecked in qualifying. I haven’t spoken to Todd Kelly about the incident but it looked to me like he was trying to keep his lap going rather than backing off and I was surprised to see he didn’t get any sort of penalty for it.

The driver who I was most impressed with on the weekend was Fabian Coulthard. Fabian has always had plenty of talent and now with the Paul Cruickshank boys putting a very good car together he can continue to do well. Fabian is also a family friend and a former co-driver of mine so on a personal level it was good to see him do well.

Murph’s new car looked good and we were relieved to see it had plenty of grunt after banking so heavily on it. I’ll be happy to jump in mine at Sandown.

I was amazed at the skill of Will Davison to get his car around the entire circuit with the bonnet up. Usually when that happens disaster follows, especially at a street circuit, making the job Will did even more impressive I would say he was driving with his mirrors and a small slither of glass at the bottom of the windscreen.

Now on to your comments:

Bron – I can understand the fans point of view on the races being so spaced out and we would love to race on a weekly or fortnightly basis, as the improved and more regular scheduling would certainly help the sport but ultimately at the present time it’s too expensive to do and it’s difficult to turn around the cars in that space of time. We also have to fit around the FIA and CAMS calendars not to mention fitting in with the schedules of other sports and the host broadcaster.

Adam – In regards to Mark Skaife retiring I have heard the rumour as well but without talking to Mark or having heard Mark say anything about it, I doubt whether he will retire. Mark still has plenty to offer, enjoys his racing and is an integral part of the series.

Right now I’m at Teaupo and enjoying it. The wind has postponed some wakeboarding but hopefully it will subside before we come back on Thursday.

JR

The Australian Grand Prix was a strange weekend and I doubt Kiss fans and F1 fans have much in common but they both seemed to enjoy the event.
 
We had such good car speed in qualifying but from there we dropped back a little bit during every race, which was a result of me being [...]

What a weird week in motorsport. There were April fool’s pranks and some things which we probably wish were April fool’s pranks.
 
Will Davison had a story released saying he would race at Indy and practically have to commute between Australia and the USA between V8 races and Indy qualifying. I was shocked and certainly got [...]