Australia is one of my favourite countries to visit – so as you can imagine, I’m pretty pleased to be here on the latest round of the World Rally Championship. I had a good look around Sydney when I arrived a few days ago, before moving up to Kingscliff for the start of the recce with the rest of the Citroen Junior Team.

Everybody used to talk about the loose gravel surface on Rally Australia, but never having competed on the Perth-based event, I couldn’t comment on that. From what I’ve seen on the recce, these roads are nothing like the ones this event used to use on the other side of the country. These roads are really wide and fast. They look great. It’s going to be tough to get the set-up right straight away, but it always is on a new event. But I’m really looking forward to getting going. The recce has been great – particularly now that my co-driver Dan [Barritt] and I are over the jetlag and not waking up in the middle of the night.