AT&T Williams F1

Budapest is a beautiful city. The concierge at the Intercontinental Hotel tells me that it’s known as the ‘Paris of the East’ and I can believe it. The architecture is stunning and the position of the Intercontinental on the banks of the Danube is perfect. From my hotel room on the seventh floor I can look across the river at the city’s castle, which provides me with a certain feel-good factor as I open the curtains each morning.

At the racetrack, today’s qualifying session was frustrating. I struggled with the balance of my FW30 on the softer, option tyre and that meant I didn’t make it through to Q2. I think a lot of other people had this problem as well, so it wasn’t unique to our car, but it was still frustrating not to make the cut because we’d hoped that this track would suit our car more than Hockenheim, Silverstone and Magny Cours.

The weather forecast for tomorrow’s race is hot-hot-hot. We are expecting ambient temperatures in excess of 30 degrees, which will mean a cockpit temperature of more than 50 degrees. That will make it very hard work on what is already a physically demanding track, but that’s why I train as hard as I do.