Southampton players celebrate together at the end of the English Premier League football match between West Ham United and Southampton at The London Stadium, in east London on September 25, 2016. BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images

Antonio Giovinazzi was called upon in Melbourne to take over from Pascal Wehrlein in the Ferrari powered Sauber as Wehrlein, the team's regular driver, felt his accident in the Race of Champions earlier in the year had caused him to fall behind in his testing regime and as such he didn't feel physically prepared for the demands the 57 lap race would place upon him.

Antonio did a fantastic job and brought the car home in P12. While he thought that would be the end of it and he would return to his role as third driver for Ferrari, Pascal announced this week that he still didn't feel physically ready, so the young Italian will be taking part in his second race for the team here in China this weekend.

Here he talks about the Melbourne GP, his time with Sauber and just how he thinks he will go in China....

Antonio, congratulations on a tremendous first grand prix in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago. How do you reflect on it now?
Thank you. It was a special weekend. It was my first F1 grand prix. Dream came true. Since I was a kid the dream was to arrive in F1 and to drive there was a fantastic experience, fantastic weekend. It was a quite late call on Saturday morning but I really enjoyed everything I did from FP3 to quali to race. So, I will never forget – and to be here already, to start from FP1 will be more easy. And also to have the experience from Melbourne will make everything a lot more easy. It will be a different race weekend though. The weather also looks difficult. So, it will be maybe wet and also to have some experience in the wet conditions will be good. What I can do is to do my best and hope the result can be good like Melbourne.

What's your deal with the Sauber team, how many races are you going to do for them?
I'm the third driver of Ferrari. Now we just think race-by-race. I had the call here on Tuesday and I'm here to race for Sauber but already from next week I will be back in red with the Scuderia Ferrari – but then we will see in the future.

So no news on Bahrain yet?
Not yet.

Physically, how tough was the Australian Grand Prix for you?
Of course I keep training in the winter so I arrive there quite prepared. To be honest at the end of the race was not easy but I expected it to be more difficult. Here I think it will be a little bit tough because the track has a lot longer corners so for the neck it will be not easy – but I was training last week and hope to also be OK here.

Do you think if you score a point this weekend it would change your career?
It's a good question. Of course it would change but it will be important for me, for my mind. Of course the result we also had in Melbourne, P12, was a good result and yeah, to improve the result from Melbourne is to take... to score a point will be difficult but I will try my best and score a point.

Antonio, how would you describe your driving style?
My driving style? I don't know. I'm quite calm, I think, normal driving style. My strong part, I think, in GP2 was – in the race – to save the tyres. In Melbourne, I didn't have much experience so maybe I was too slow in the beginning of the race but of course here I will improve, to already have FP1 and FP2 will be good to see how is the degradation, to have a feeling with the car so I hope I can do a better job in the race here.

There's a lot being made about the difficulty of overtaking this season. There was maybe only a handful of passing manoeuvres in Australia. Do you think the new regulations will make attempting an overtake maybe a bit more of a braver thing; will you have to put more on the line now to pass a car and will that contribute to the spectacle of racing? How much harder is it to overtake in Formula One compared to GP2?
To be honest it's quite different, you know. In GP2 we all have similar cars, only one strategy, only one pit stop so I think GP2 was a good category for overtaking but to be honest I think here in Shanghai with the longer straight it will be easier than in Melbourne but to be honest, I didn't have much experience compared to last year so what I say is not much to take into account so GP2 was good, F1 I don't have much experience of so after this race I can tell you better.

Antonio, did you set yourself any specific goals, targets for this weekend? For example, beating Marcus or is it just about relaxing for you?
Just as you say, maybe relaxing and enjoying of course and getting more experience. After one race is not enough to set a target so I need to just drive and take experience and do my best and then we will see the results on Sunday.

It's rare for a reserve driver to get a racing opportunity. How are you approaching this race compared to the last race in the sense that... are you treating it like a CV for a race drive next year or is it really just about you filling in the race seat and getting the job done for Sauber?
Yeah, I'm the third driver of Ferrari. Now I'm back here in China. Of course I have more time to prepare for the race so already from FP1 compared to Melbourne and yeah, I just need to take experience, do a lot of laps and of course about next year, this year is still too early to speak. I'm really glad to drive here so I need to say thanks to Scuderia Ferrari and Sauber for this opportunity and I need to just drive and gain experience.