Jon started the weekend well in Italy when he set a stunning pace in qualifying to head the time-sheets first in his group, and second fastest overall by less than 4/100ths! Just ahead of him in qualifying was Marco Ardigo, although Jon was still able to deliver a good set of heats results to line up in a strong position for the first final.

'A 5th and a 1st in the two heats put me on grid two for the first final, Jon explained. I had not been out on the Sunday after the early morning warm up at 8am, when I had been 3/10ths faster than everyone. But by 3:30pm, the time for the start of the first final, the track had changed a lot, with
loads of rubber going down (onto the track surface). This gave the chassis too much grip and made the engine look bad at the bottom end (of the power range).'

'With all the rubber on the track I bogged down away from the start, and after the first corner was back in 7th place! This was not good! I made my way back to 3rd though, before the water over-heated, which left me with reduced power! It meant that I dropped back to 6th place overall, until I made a last lap lunge over the hill at Garda to take 5th place.' It was OK, and Jon was happy with that result as the team made changes for the second final.

As the second final approached Jon knew he would be staring from grid five, from where he made a good start, unlike in the first final. 'I got up to 3rd and stayed there for a bit, but then I realised that I was starting to get too much grip again, as we were using a different chassis to Sauro (Cesetti, Jon's Birel team-mate). It meant that basically my chassis was OK when there was not a lot of grip, but it struggled when there was a lot of grip! I finished in 7th place, which I suppose was not too bad,' but certainly not good for where Jon wants to be in 2006.

'A three day Bridgestone tyre test followed at Varennes in the week after the Lonato event, and that was brill!' he said. 'We tested a new chassis ready for La Conca this coming weekend and it was fab! We then went to Genk (in Belgium) to test several new engines, and they were great too! So we have lots of confidence going into the first round of the European Championships. Hopefully we should have a good win to celebrate!'