TOC Yahoo/Maxim blog - post Silverstone 05 September 2008

It was manic recently leading up to Silverstone. We had a charity golf day, organised by Triple Eight Engineering on the Thursday before the race meeting, which was great fun! We raised over £4,000 for Bliss, a charity that supports premature babies and their families. I'm an ambassador for the charity, so it was really great to get involved and make such a large contribution.

As usual, I spent a couple of days with the team at the Vauxhall factory making plans for the weekend. Typically we would have a shakedown on the Thursday, but because we wanted to make sure we could go to the golf day, things had to be shifted around a bit. Other than that, I have been training really hard, making sure that I was ready for Silverstone and will be in great shape for Brands Hatch.

Unfortunately, the meeting at Silverstone was a little bit wet! I've driven at Croft in the rain before, but that was the only experience I really had of wet tyres and set-up. I had quite a lot to learn, but it has given me a lot more confidence. I was definitely improving throughout the day and moved up from 11th in the first race to 6th for both races two and three.

Our final meeting of the season is at Brands Hatch at the end of the month. I can't believe it has come round so quickly and have mixed feelings about it. This year's first rounds were held at Brands Hatch and I'm really excited that I will be able to compare my performance. It will be great to see everything that I've learnt throughout the year, but at the same time, I'm disappointed the season is over so quickly. I've learnt a lot about the set-up of the car and it will be interesting to see which drivers have improved the most and are able to maximise their performance.

Before Brands Hatch, I will be going through the typical pre-race preparations. I will go to the factory for a couple of days and work through the data we have from last year and from the rounds at the beginning of the season. I really need to do my best; if I can get into the top five it would be a fantastic achievement and would definitely help tick-off all those boxes for my first season. We've got an end of year party planned for Brands, which should be fantastic. Hopefully the celebrations will extend into the following week as well!

Having Matt and Fabrizio as team-mates during my rookie year has been great. It's really good to be able to learn from them and they keep passing down little bits of information. Fabrizio was really great at helping me get up to speed at the beginning of the season. They've both been around for such a long time and Matt has done so many things. They've got some great stories and it's fantastic to get to hear them straight from the horse's mouth!

I've finally booked a holiday for the end of the year, so will be spending a couple of weeks in Florida. It will be really nice just to chill out for a bit. The holiday won't last long though. As soon as the racing is finished, next season's plans will be put into place, and hopefully I will be returning with Vauxhall next year. But for now, I just need to keep my head down and concentrate on getting a good result at Brands Hatch.