Felipe Nasr is in his debut season racing in F1 for Sauber. He will write exclusively for F1i.com after each round of the 2015 season to provide insight in to the life of an F1 driver.
On the road again
There are many reasons to make a particular grand prix worth remembering. The Singapore GP is one of them, for a lot of good ones.
To start with it was blatant proof of Sauber's effort and capacity in producing so many upgrades for our car and they did make a difference. Then there was our strategic decision to stick to only two pit stops, once again team and driver worked hand in hand to come up with a car that was good on its tyres and got us to the end pretty well.
For sure getting back to point scoring was another very good reason to rejoice and take confidence for some of the tracks yet to come. Tracks that in theory are much more suitable to our new Sauber C34 and where it will profit from its natural top speed.
Talking about top speed, in Singapore, besides that, we had a much improved front end. The steering wheel felt slightly heavier, but the precision, the capacity to point the car more easily has improved tenfold. Very good work!
As Willie Nelson says I can't wait to get on the road again this weekend in Japan!
Let's spend the night together
I had a very good start of the race and jumped up some places. The two-stop strategy, combined with good luck on the first safety car and a solid performance of the car on the tricky (for us) option tyres, ensured I was moving forwards all the time.
After that with the prime tyres I was able to make a strong stint that, combined with the problems ahead, got me up to 7th place at one stage. All the time the Stones reminding me how good it was spending the night together until the race was interrupted by the crazy stroller deciding to cross the track..
The second safety car made me want to forget the night.
A hard day's night
It was a hard day's night, so would say the boys from Liverpool. For me it was full of good decisions, backed by a good car, real good pit stops (thanks guys!) that almost came to an end with the second Safety Car deployment.
I was passed by the three-stopping Lotuses and sitting tight as a perfect target for the Toro Rossos - who were around half a minute behind me before the safety car - that were on option tyres. There was nothing that I could do, but rally on to the chequered flag and a well-deserved and hard fought point. After six GPs without a point, to be on the right road again is awesome.
This weekend will be my first race at Suzuka, and I'm looking forward to the challenge of the unknown. Everyone tells me it's a great track to race on, and I'll let you know all about it next week here on F1i.
Felipe
Click here for more exclusive columns from Felipe Nasr
Click here for F1i's technical analysis of the Singapore upgrades
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