Frustrating opening round for Michael

After a successful intensive course at Silverstone in February, Michael was full of confidence and ambition going into the opening round. Although cold, track conditions were near perfect and Michael found a very quick early pace, setting the fastest times in Formula First throughout all practise sessions and then put the car comfortably on pole, even out-qualifying the much faster Zeus cars. "I managed to get a feel for the car and circuit very quickly and was able to push hard from the word go" he explained.

After winning race one, Michael had to change cars due to a technical problem. His second car proved to be off the pace and Michael was having gearbox problems throughout qualifying and race two. "I was struggling to get the car into gear, especially at the start of the race where I had a good initial get away but just could not find another gear. I was lucky not to have lost to many places but I was definitely being held up in the race by a much slower Zeus; unfortunately the car was not quick enough to out run it. However due to the circumstances I think that third was a solid result".

For race three, Michael decided to take a gamble and change car for the second time that afternoon, in the hope of securing a better package. Unfortunately this did not pay off as Michael only managed to better his position to 2nd in this race. "It was a frustrating race because I was much faster but I just did not have the car underneath me today".