It was an incredible feeling to get third place and getting on the podium in front of Subaru's home crowd made it extra special. In the days following the rally I received heaps of emails and calls from all over the world, so it seemed that a lot people were watching and wanting us to do well.

Even discounting the Japan result it's been a good season. Primarily we set out to get more experience on different surfaces, but we wanted to be fast too. We'd been quick at most events and the result in Japan showed that it was only lack of experience that cost us. We've also been unlucky sometimes, but that's life - you've got to get up again and start over. My most memorable event was Sweden in February, my SWRT debut and my first-ever snow rally. We set some pretty good times, some of them faster than Sebastien Loeb, which was very satisfying!

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Even though we retired not long after, setting a quicker time than the World Champion was a good feeling.

There is a big step from those cars to the WRC, much more than you would expect. It is a step forward in terms of performance, but you have to adapt to the power pretty quickly, otherwise you will lose lots of time. The biggest difference though is that there is much more potential to get it wrong with a WRC car.

The team has had a tough year but everyone has worked very hard to turn it round and you can see a lot of effort going into longer-term plans. On the whole though everyone has been very welcoming to me and I get on well with most people. Petter and I have a good working relationship - he's good to work with and very friendly. We've had a lot of fun together.

I've spent a lot of time in the UK so I can go to the factory as much as possible. I regularly drop in and discuss the last rally and developments for the next event with team management and engineers, so I usually stay very close by. The focus this year has been on developing my rally skills and living in England has been good for this reason as it means I can spend as much time as possible with the team. It's been fun getting to know people here and seeing a bit more of the country, but it's not like home!

Yes, we do. When you spend so much time together you have to get on! I said to Glenn that we had to be honest with each other and if one person is annoying the other then we had to say something and stop it before it became a real problem. That said, there is very little that we argue about. We haven't fallen out about who leaves the milk out of the fridge or anything like that.