A difficult race for d’Ambrosio

A solid performance for Jérôme in the Italian Grand Prix this afternoon; the Belgian doing his reputation in the paddock no harm at all after a composed drive brought him just outside the points positions in difficult circumstances at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza

Jérôme, your first race back in the hot seat after ten months; how was it out there?

It was a pretty long and difficult race for me today. After losing my KERS on lap 6 it was always going to be tough as that’s worth about half a second per lap around here. My main aim was to finish and I’ve achieved that so it’s not so bad overall. I definitely improved a lot in the race and put in a much stronger performance than I managed in qualifying. As a racing driver you always want more and are always looking to improve, so the more time I have in the car the happier I am!

The first lap here at Monza is notoriously tricky but you seemed to handle it very well…

You always have to be cautious on the first lap here; myself in particular as I haven’t made a competitive race start in about ten months. I got a good start and overtook two cars off the line but they got back past in the first corner. It’s a shame but – like I said already – my aim today was to complete a full race distance and add to my experience so I didn’t want to try anything too brave; you can’t learn anything from the gravel trap! In the next few laps I got into a good rhythm and was up there fighting with Daniel [Ricciardo] and Nico [Rosberg], but once I lost that extra boost from the KERS it was impossible to keep up and I dropped back. I tried my best but it was very difficult to really take the fight to anyone.

With a bit more luck, do you think even more may have been possible today?

Looking at the pace we had in the second stint – where I was on medium tyres and in clean air – I think we could have been fighting for points if we’d had KERS. It’s frustrating but that’s part of racing; you just have to deal with it and do the best job you can. I didn’t make many mistakes; there was one minor moment where I was fighting with someone into Lesmo 2 and lost downforce. I locked a front wheel and ran a little bit wide but I still had two wheels on the astroturf so it was nothing major. It was great to be back in the car and especially with such a fantastic team; I’ve learnt a lot this weekend.