Following the disastrous result of last months round of the Gulf Radical Cup, I arrived at the Dubai Autodrome for the 8th and penultimate round of the championship and an almost must win situation. I had faltered badly in the second half of the season and have seen what was once a commanding points lead reduced to a deficit. I have made lots of mistakes under pressure and my drop to second place reflects that. To make things worse the victory I needed was going to be even more difficult to achieve as Bahrain team 777 had flown the quicker of their two drivers Salman Bin Rashid back out from the U.K during the smallest of gaps in his Formula 3 schedule to contest this weekends race at the Autodrome. Fresh from a podium finish in the first round of the British series he was going to be tough to beat.  This was reflected by my P2 qualifying 0.4 sec behind Salman as I struggled with difficult handling.  To complicate matters further the car was running hot, struggling in the unusually warm conditions. As a remedy a piece of cardboard box was taped onto my sidepods in order to direct more airflow into the side radiators. Amazingly this worked, dropping both the oil and water temperatures by almost 10’C. Race one was a hard fought affair with me shadowing Salman to the chequered flag. The second race of the meeting started with me jumping into the lead at the start where I would stay for half of the race until a big sideways moment coming onto the main straight allowed Salman to sail by me into the lead. Out of frustration I started to overdrive and made many more errors to finish a disappointing 2nd despite having fastest lap of the race. I now have a really big hole to climb out of but its not over yet.