Frankly Franchitti

Welcome to 2001, and my first opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year. My off-season wasn't (sadly) spent with my feet up. I've worked very hard throughout and I really feel in the best shape I've ever felt going into a new season. I arrived in Mexico confident that we were going to have a good weekend, and that the awful year we had last year was behind us.

We did have a promising weekend, but I guess the over-riding emotion from Monterrey for me is disappointment. I left the track not happy at all. We were quick and we were competitive, but we were given a pit-lane speeding penalty which ruined a good finish.

There are also a lot of positives from the weekend, but I'm like all racing drivers and I want it now! At least I finished, so compared to most of last year that was a bonus.

One thing that was definitely a positive was the event itself. So many people, so enthusiastic. I couldn't go anywhere without being chased for autographs, but compared to Adrian (Fernandez) it was nothing. For Mexico, he is the equivalent of Ferrari in Italy. Every time he moved they cheered. We had 90,000 people at the track on Saturday for qualifying. The enthusiasm of the spectators is something I hope we can take to other races this year.

The track has a great layout. It's a shame they've had some problems like the grass coming up on the corners, and people knocking the cones out short-cutting the turns. If they put more kerbing in it would be really good. It maybe needs a bit more run-off in some areas, but as a track it's challenging. There's no grip, but it's a new track so that's to be expected. I'm sure that will be fixed for next year.

There are places to pass, or will be, but there's one line on this track just now. Even on the straight you go off-line and you got wheelspin. But you're busy the whole lap, and there's a couple of long sweeping corners. It's more like a classic European layout than anything else in the States I would say. The first chicane is great, third gear around 100mph and a left-right where you get the back sliding - it's great.

The first session we ran on Friday was incredible, so slippery. Despite blazing sunshine I saw that Helio actually went out on wets, and was running faster! Naturally it got faster as we've run more, but that brings its own difficulties as you have to anticipate the track conditions with your set-up. In qualifying we didn't do that. We didn't change enough, and we ended up seventh. In the morning I felt we had a car for the front row, so that also was disappointing.

It meant that I was on the dirty side for the start - the very dirty side -and into a tricky right-left that had 'accident' written all over it. I was prepared for a bad start -- and I made it! It was crap. But I did get through the first corner which was a major bonus. I lost about three places on the start, so I was doing OK. I went to pass Jimmy Vasser, and I should have known not to bother because the track was so bad, but all I managed was to outbrake myself and get on the grass. So I lost three or four more places.

Coming to the second pit stop we'd managed to go three laps longer than anybody else. The last three laps of that stint were quicker than anyone else, and the two in-laps were nine tenths quicker than my qualifying lap. The Team Kool Green guys did a phenomenal job on the stop and I came out third.

I came out of the pits straight on the tail of Gil de Ferran. I was on cold tyres but could keep up with him, and he'd pitted three laps earlier. And I kept up with him until they black flagged me for my drive through. I don't think I could have passed him, but third place would have been a result bearing in mind qualifying and my start. It would certainly have been better than the ninth we ended up with.

We were looking sweet, and then I got news of the drive through penalty. I don't know what happened, we'd run the same speed-limiter all weekend, so to get penalised in the race is really frustrating. I was looking at the board and it said 48mph then jumped to 50. We were done for 51.

It was so disappointing. We were competitive, we got the quickest lap by quite a bit, and that was a lot quicker than my best qualifying lap despite having already done a full stint on the tyres. We were looking good for a podium. Still it's one of 21 races, so to go and with the cancellation of Rio a break until Long Beach next month.

And with no testing, I'm going to take advantage of the unexpected break and go back to Scotland to see my family and friends. See you in California!