At Silverstone, which he said he considers to be his second home, he qualified 16th, outpacing Button. With heavy rain on race day, through good use of an extreme wet tyre he finished 3rd, achieving his first podium since 2005. However, in Germany, a collision with David Coulthard ended his hopes for points. In Hungary, he was lapped by the leader, repeating the same performance in Valencia. In Belgium he qualified 16th but had to retire because of a gearbox fault. At a wet Monza, he was second-fastest in Friday practice and started from 16th on the grid. He managed to get up to 9th but as a result of using the wrong type of tyre in his second pit stop he ended up 17th. At the first ever night race in Singapore he was in a good position to score some points after pitting before the pit lane closed for the safety car period, but shortly afterwards the engine failed and he had to retire. In Japan he started from 17th on the grid, but managed to get up to 13th by the end of the race. In China he managed to get into Q2 for the first time in ten races, and would have started 14th. But after Mark Webber had his ten place penalty for an engine change added he was moved up to 13th. On race day he had a good start, and got up to 10th early on and held a strong mid-table position all race and finished 11th, five places ahead of Button, who had struggled all weekend.