Jamie is on fire

Well, as good as his first round was, I have to say there are quite a few in the field who can beat him; me included.  Jamie had an almost perfect start with two victories and one pole. He's definitely on fire, but everyone can be beaten on their day if you get the car set-up right.

Jamie came over here a coupe of weeks ago, had a good insight into the circuit and got a good set-up in the car.  Both our Holdens went well straight up. No one expected us to come out with the speed we had.

The first race was more about fuel consumption than anything else. At the end we just had enough fuel to do a full lap at full pace and close the gap.  With the length of some of the races these days you need good fuel consumption.

We learnt a lot from race one and made some adjustments and had a lot better fuel consumption in race two, but our strategy didn't quite suit.  We didn't seem to have the pace early on yet strangely we did in the last 10 laps. The car was barely changed from race one yet we didn't seem to have the balance quite how I wanted it. It was a little disappointing, but that's motor racing.

I still had a better start to the season than I've had for the last two years.  It's a long championship and to be sitting in third is better than where the HRT boys ended up.

They showed a lot of pace, but were plagued with mechanical issues. I'm sure they'll bounce back this weekend in Bahrain.  A lot of teams and drivers showed good pace straight up: Frosty, the Kelly brothers, Cheeseburger (Shane Van Gisbergen) and Courtney. There are a lot of cars that will be competitive this year.

There was a bit of biff and barge and some great racing at the weekend, but the incident where Cheeseburger bumped me off the track won't come to anything with the stewards because there was no real harm done.

I can understand that the fans might be disappointed about starting the season overseas, but if we are going to have overseas races in the calendar then I think it's better that we get them out of the way first rather than interrupting the season.

It's easier for teams, because we are all fresh and the cars are ready to go. If we started with Clipsal, there would be teams racing to get wrecks ready to be shipped overseas.  Besides, what better way to start the season than with a spectacular new circuit. It also sort of evened things up a little because no one knew what to expect.

The Yas Marina circuit is absolutely amazing, especially when you consider how quickly they erected all the infrastructure, plus they are developing it all the time.  It's a fast, flowing circuit that also has some good second-gear corners.

I don't know what it looked like on TV, but none of the drivers I know had any issues with the lighting or vision.  The only slightly dull patch was through the corkscrew which is a new area with more temporary lighting than the permanent stuff. Around the rest of the circuit it was like driving in daytime.

After the weekend, our team headed out into the desert before heading up to Bahrain for this weekend's Desert 400.  Before we left, our team boss, Roland (Dane), decided we should do a "Desert Experience" where you camp out in the desert.

We took two buggies and five four-wheel drives and had a great time yahooing over the dunes. It was a great chance to blow off some steam.  I really love camping out and it was tremendous to be out in the desert, sleeping under the stars.

One day I'll bring Nat and the kids over to experience it, but just at the moment Levi and Chilli are a bit too young.  It's a two-week trip by the time we get back and that's too long to have the kids out of school, especially when they have just started.

Levi is in year two and Chilli is in prep and it's important to give them a good start to the year.  But I must bring them over eventually.