One down, thirteen to go.  Looking back over how the weekend faired I’ve gotta be satisfied with the result.  I had a 170kph tumble in the wet morning warm up which I could have done without.  

I exited the pits on the hard rear wet (after the soft had destroyed itself on a drying track) when it began raining again and I got chucked off.  The hard Pirelli wet is only good for a damp track; with rainfall you have to tiptoe.  Even still I finished the warm up in second position so wet or dry, we’re there.
 
In the race itself I got an average start but dropped as far back as ninth position on lap two before hitting the front just four laps later.  I made a few really good overtaking manoeuvres and then a few times I was able to just blast past on the main straight!  

My team have done a great job with our ’09 bikes as I was fit to pass the Ten Kate and Yamaha boys in a straight line today.  I wanted to hit the front to try and split the group because there were still 15 riders going at it and I didn’t fancy that towards the end of the race.
 
After my stint at the front I tried to look after my tyre then at the end of the race I squeezed every last bit of grip from it.  Towards the end Sofuoglu, Pitt and West got over a second gap on me and Cal but we fought back to close the gap at the finish.  

I exited the last turn in 4th but just touched the edge of the track and it cost me.  Cal pipped me by 0.001sec so I was pretty pissed with myself for making a silly little error at the finish after an inch perfect race.  Nevertheless 5th offers a good handful of points and it’s a solid start to our championship challenge.
 
I wasn’t aiming for the win here as the other guys had a head start in testing but I’m definitely aiming for my first victory in Qatar.  I’m really happy with how we’re working as a team and we’ve proved we’re a force to be reckoned with.  

I achieved my goal of top 5-6 so I’m gonna head out tonight for a small celebration.  I’ll buy Leon Haslam a beer after his performance in race two, hell of a ride that was.
 
Hope you all enjoyed my ramblings, cheers.