11/08/2010
Team Suzuki Press Office - August 11.
The season started very well at Phillip Island and then afterwards there have been some good weekends, but I haven't found it all that easy to put it all together, possibly because I have had to learn a lot of new tracks this year.
So for me, this season has been a big learning process and a lot to take in. After my big injury last year, I needed to build up my confidence again and this is not an easy thing to do in the most competitive race series in the world. Tiny fractions of a second have been the difference in qualifying and when you don't qualify well and are down the grid it makes life very hard in the races.
But I have seen good signs of progress in the last three races and feel that my confidence is returning. The team has helped me enormously this season and we have developed a very good relationship which is getting better and better all the time. It helps that my crew all speak French, because that has makes it much easier in the debriefings. It's the first time, I've been able to speak to my mechanics in my own language since 2007 and the funny thing is that I am so used to speaking in English that I spent the first few debriefings speaking to my crew in English! They gave me funny looks and laughed at me, but now I speak to them in French....... and sometimes they still laugh at me!
It also helps that the boss Francis Batta is a native French speaker, because that makes communication so much easier. We have a very good relationship. He speaks to me a lot during the season and always gives me good advice and that has been an important part of my progress this season.
Now that we're on a break from racing, I have been spending a lot of time with my family. My home is in England and I am very used to English ways. Although there's no race action now, there's plenty to do. Just last week I was at Brands doing a demo on the Suzuki Alstare GSX-R race bike. It was great to be back at Brands and I really enjoyed myself - especially as I was able to ride the long GP circuit for the first time. Last year, I missed riding the GP circuit because I was injured, so it was a real blast to go round the full track and see all the fans there. It was a great day out and I hope everybody enjoyed my wheelies.
I've also been doing a lot of cycling - road and mountain-biking - recently because it is a good way to keep fit and have some fun at the same time. I ride bikes, made by Commencal - an Andorran company - and although they are not well-known in UK, they are great bikes, particularly the carbon-fibre one!
Apart from keeping fit, I'm going to have some fun taking the family to Disneyland. My kids are at the right age for Disneyland and although they went not so long ago, it's the kind of place that kids like to go to more than once. I must say that I enjoy it also!
It's good to have a break at this stage of the season, but it won't be long before I will start thinking about racing again and once practice starts on Friday in Nurburgring, I will be focussed on continuing my progress and getting the kind of results I should be getting."