Considering the problems we had with our pace in qualifying and even in the warm-up, I'm very happy to score nine points. We had a good, clean first race with no problems.

On lap 4, I made a small mistake in turn 1. I lost a place to James Thompson there. But then we had a good race for the rest of it; I was happy to finish fourth.

In the second race, I wanted to do what Tom Coronel had done which was slicks on the front and wets at the rear. We had tried that before many years ago and the car is very unbalanced.

Then I said, "I want slicks", and the team were like: "No, were not sure; we don't think its a good idea; we need to be safe". But I just said: "Please, I need slicks". I'm very happy it worked.

Again, we had a small off in turn 2, and again it was James who went past. In the last few laps, James and I were the fastest people on the track. We were lucky with some problems ahead of us, where three cars went off. You couldn't push too hard; you rather had to keep it safe within the limits. That's what I did. It got me nine points. I'm still third in the championship and more than happy with that.

We had tried the Tommy (Coronel) way many years ago when I was still in the BTCC. They have no tyre warmers there so it's much harder to get the heat in the rears. Here, we have the tyre blankets so we had some heat in the rears to start with. But after two laps in the wet, there was not heat left in the rears so you had to really work hard.

If it goes really dry, you end up with the wets at the rear falling apart and subsquently a lot of grip at the front. I'm okay with it because it means the car is sideways all the time. It's quite difficult to drive while keeping speed. Even in the fast corners, the car keeps stepping out; its like a rear-wheel drive drift car. I thought I would be happy with it.

We knew it wouldn't dry out fully. In the first few laps, we were a couple of seconds slower than the wet runners. But after lap 4, we were the fastest person on track; on lap 5, I made that mistake and from there on, I was picking people one by one.

The change of weather on Saturday did help us a great deal. We were struggling in Friday testing, when it was dry not so much on the one-off lap with new tyres but more in comparison to the BMWs on the long runs due to tyre wear. The track is tight and twisty, with a very abrasive tarmac and low grip. There was a big demand from the front tyres, and they just could not handle it with the front-wheel drive.

We got the best conditions to suit our car. Certainly for me, it paid off.

After Okayama, I am now officially and mathematically out of the World Title hunt. But realistically, the chances of winning the championship at any point this season were very small. We can potentially get second overall; we have as much chances of getting second as the current second-placed guy, Gabriele Tarquini, has of getting first. We know the car is fantastic round Macau and I'm good there, too so we'll give it our best shot.