But despite having to see Marc replaced after just two races Juan Pablo would work just as closely with Antonio Pizzonia, who replaced Marc for the German Grand Prix.

Juan Pablo said: "I think he was unlucky. He made a couple of mistakes in qualifying at the last race, and was then stuck in traffic all race. I think he lost a bit of an opportunity there because, throughout the weekend, he was very fast.

"It is strange to work with somebody else every race, but that is the way it is. It is harder for the rest of the team than for myself. It is harder for the race engineer than me. I am doing the best I can at every race, with my people working around my car.

"With Marc, I tended to help him quite a bit because he asked. If Antonio asks, I will help him. Of course, if I have a problem and he seems to be going the better direction than me, then, for sure, I will ask him questions too."

As for his prospects this weekend Juan Pablo felt that with the changes been made to the FW26 he should be able to move closer to the front of the field this weekend.

Juan Pablo added: "I think the last couple of races have turned things a little bit our way. There are a couple of things coming on the car, and it is nice to see that, but I think that there is still a long way to go to really be fully competitive.

"I think a lot of aerodynamic things are fixed. It doesn't really change the way you have got to run the car. At Silverstone, we had a couple of new things on it and improved. We have new things here, and I think we have started to get a normal rate of development race-by-race. I just think that, in the first six months, we fell back so much that it really cost us."