Dario's debrief: Monterrey

A good weekend for us, really good. To start the championship with a second place is always good. About the only downside was Tora Takagi getting in the way in the final few laps.

Qualifying I was happy with. The new rules that award points for the fastest driver each day I think are really good. We had certainly had a shot at the pole, but if we'd completed my best lap without getting traffic we'd have had fastest time and that point. I just caught Max (Papis) towards the end of the lap, and I had my team mate Michael Andretti behind me, so there wasn't really a lot I could do without screwing up mine and their laps all at the same time. But at least with local hero Adrian (Fernandez) taking pole it meant that the fans were pretty happy. They had more stands up this year over last year, and everyone was a lot better prepared. It certainly seemed full, which is pretty impressive. The atmosphere, especially pre-race, was amazing.

Saturday was weird because of the wet. The track had already been a lot quicker on Saturday morning, so we were a bit trapped by strategy when it rained. We couldn't afford to go out and try and get the point in the wet in case the track dried, because we'd have needed all the laps we could get our hands on, as it was obvious that the circuit would be quicker than Friday. We just had to make sure that we monitored everyone else's times and be ready to go if we needed to, and laps in hand just in case.

The track was really, really slippery all weekend. It started to get more grip, but the rain kind of put us back to square one, and even by the time of the start of the race on Sunday it was still very, very slippery. Gradually there was more and more grip as the race went on.

My biggest thing with the start was that I wanted to make sure I got a clean one. The first corner there is pretty difficult, and I wanted to make sure I could get through OK. And I certainly didn't want to take Adrian off because I feared for my chances of getting out of the country that night if I did!

It wasn't bad. The first stint was OK. Alex Tagliani got past me because I think he got his car working on his tyres better than we did. He was really quick that first stint, and then he just went backwards from there, so I don't know what happened to him. We were running second when we came in for the first stops, but unfortunately the crew dropped it off the jacks, which hurt us because both Newman-Haas cars which had been behind us, had now got in front. So it hurt us, but did it make a difference to the end result? I don't know. I think that although Cristiano was quicker, if I'd been in front of him I don't think he'd have found it quite so easy to get past.

From that point on, the stops were flawless, really, really quick. One of the stops was so quick I didn't have time to get a proper drink out of my bottle! I had to take off with one hand on the gear lever, and the other holding the bottle, and steering out the pits with my knees! I had to throw the bottle out halfway down the pits, because I didn't want to lose any time. But the stops were great, and we had a really, really good strategy. Also we had really good help from the guys at Reynard and at Honda. They've been pulling out all the stops to help us out to find a bit more in the way of performance, and it showed.

And I have a new engineer in Allen McDonald, and that's working out very well. The testing has gone pretty well, and our first test under pressure in race conditions was great, and we ended up with a second place finish. Hopefully they'll all be like that!

What was most encouraging about the whole weekend was being able to qualify at the front. Traditionally that's always been our strong point, but last year we were just terrible. We just couldn't get the pace out of the car at all. None of us, all three of us struggled on new tyres, but in Mexico we seemed to have that sorted. Hopefully we can continue that.

I'll tell you what, though, the new rules that mean we can now race flat out from start to finish. Fantastic! It was so much fun. You knew that if you were just a hair's breadth too slow, just a couple of hundredths a lap, it could be the difference between someone getting out of the pits in front of you and holding you up. So you just had to keep pushing, every lap from the first lap.

The race was really a lot of fun and went really well, at least until that pace car, where they missed da Matta, and didn't pick him up for a lap, which allowed Takagi to get out of the pits between us. He was even told by his team owner to get out of the way, and he was also told by CART - although I don't know how early that happened. But he proceeded to drive round like an idiot, getting in the way and holding me up. And that really pissed me off.

He was two laps down at the time and had no place being there. He was the only guy on his lap, so it's not like he was going to lose anything. It's typical of the attitude he's displayed since he showed up in the championship. I think he's had more run-ins with more people and caused more problems. You get to wonder quite why he's in the championship at all to be honest, because he hasn't really achieved much.

So that was disappointing. I probably didn't have the pace, but at least I could have had a go at passing da Matta, or least pressured him a bit. Who knows what might have happened. Hopefully CART will do something about it, and hopefully his team owner too. Maybe we'll see CART say something like with under so many laps to go, then lapped cars should get put to the back, to hopefully stop that problem occurring again.

It was an unfortunate way to end, because up to that point it had been an excellent weekend. The new formats were good, our strategies were good.

I heard that the TV coverage was good. They're talking about using more and more cameras, especially in the cockpits, with the pedals and gearshifts. I was carrying a camera too, but I don't know how much they used it. The TV guys are doing such a great job, and they're working so hard. Scott Pruett, Calvin Fish and Derek Daly are all running up and down the pitlane. You can see that they so want to do a good job. And they have more time before the start and after the finish. The whole atmosphere there was so positive towards CART, which hasn't always been the way, especially last year.

I'll have to wait until I get home to see the coverage. I went straight from Mexico to Los Angeles where we've got two days testing at Fontana. Now all we've got to do is get the coverage sorted back in Europe so that they can get the races live again. That's what we need.

But we have a bit of a gap until Long Beach next month, which should be good for us too. Then it's Japan and then the Indy 500. CART is still my main focus, and until Japan is out of the way, I'm not even going to think about Indianapolis. But I am looking forward to it, it's going to be a real experience.