2009 Season Review
It seems an awful long time ago that I was packing my bags to head to Brazil and the first race of the season. In fact it is a long time – it is nearly nine months. A lot of water has gone under the bridge and a lot of racing miles have been covered and so it is time to look back on the year and put myself under the microscope.
I am without doubt my own biggest critic and so at the end of each year I like to look back and analyse how I did. Despite not winning the title, I can look back on 2009 with a lot of satisfaction as I reckon it is the year in which I have performed better than before in my long career.
I think I just have to separate the results from the performance. That more or less sums up my year and to be honest I am happier than I have ever been before. I don’t think I have been as fast as I have been this year in all my previous seasons. I have been fighting for pole many times, and also on many occasions I had been so close. Then in the races my lap times have been great and the speed of the car pretty special. It has been a really rewarding season as I don’t need the championship to give me confidence. I would even say I have become mentally stronger than before. You have to learn to lose to learn to win and I have probably developed more as a driver in the last 18months than I have before.
I can also look forward and know that I have many more championships in me. Just look at Gabriele Tarquini who is 47. On my reckoning I have at least a dozen years to reach that point. I know how to win a championship and just what dedication is involved and I am certain that I can do that again.
I am not saying the championship is my main focus. The main focus is improving all the time. At the moment that is working better than before, so the outcome has been I am stronger with my race strategy. I know what I want, I know what I am prepared to accept, I know what I need from the car, and I know what I need from myself. Perhaps people on the outside don’t see that this has been one of my strongest years, but that doesn’t matter as I have self belief and know all the facts.
All the top drivers in the WTCC are very talented. However, what makes them special is how they can develop a car if it is bad. When you get the car out of the truck on Saturday and in first free practice it is not good it is then that you ask yourself what do I have to do to make it good? There is pressure over the whole season to do this. There is pressure to keep your energy levels up. Your work ethic must remain positive even when things are really bad. You have to put all the ingredients together and make the best of the environment to give you the chance to win. You are given the smallest window of opportunity to work in and you have to achieve something very special from that.
By being World Champion it didn’t change my life, so this year seeing someone else take the title again was not a major blow. It just meant when I woke up on those Monday mornings in 2005, 2006 and 2007 I could have a big smile on my face. I still believe I am a world champion. I proved on three occasions I could do that so I don’t need the trophy to remind me.
I have had many world championship performances this year. The races I won were the first race and not the second. This is the first year where success ballast has not limited my performance and I have been constantly at the front. People forget that in the years I won I was sometimes carrying 70 or 80 kilos. In the races towards the end of the years my car was constantly heavy so it was difficult to qualify in the top ten. I was criticised for using the reverse grid to win, but they didn’t know I had the extra weight as it wasn’t written on the windscreen.
A good mental approach is always important to me, so I have refined both this and my working method. I have eliminated the factors that have taken me away from the goal. I could list a hundred things. It is everything. It involves the team, the car, the chassis, the tyres, the environment, everything. I have prioritised a few and managed to make it work.
I also have the added problem of being a one car team and believe that I have had to work five times harder than the five SEAT drivers. However, I am not complaining as I have an incredible team in RBM and have developed a great relationship with them over the years. We really have to work hard and Macau was a good example. We went from nowhere at the start of the weekend to second on the grid. It could have gone the opposite way, but we worked hard and sorted it out.
I have to say the WTCC in my opinion is the ultimate competition. I think this is one of the hardest championships in the world. Maybe I am biased, but everywhere I have gone away from this series whether it is V8 Supercars or GT racing this championship has stood me in very good stead. It has made me ultra, ultra critical of the car and myself as it has a very high bench mark. I think if you ask a lot of the other drivers on this grid who have driven in other series like DTM they will agree it is very, very tough. WTCC is instant gratification or instant hardship. You are either there or you are not.
Our plans for 2010 are still under wraps, but I am ready for any challenge thrown at me. I still love my racing as much as I did when I was coming up through the ranks. I have a lot of support from my family and friends and have some great fans out there. I shall look forward to meeting you all again at tracks round the world next year and promise you I shall be racing as hard, if not harder, than ever.