Fitter and better prepared than last year - Kovalainen
In an interview with the official Formula One site, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 Team driver Heikki Kovalainen showed very optimistic for the season ahead. The youngster hopes to score in his second year for the Woking-based outfit.
“It’s too early to say but, yes, I hope so. As a Formula 1 driver you have to go into every season believing you can be world champion – otherwise there’s no point being here. And I totally believe I go into the new season with every chance of fighting for the world championship. I’ve learned so much from last year, I think I’ve developed as both a person and as a driver and I know that if the car is good then I’ll have every chance of fighting for wins. And if that happens, I hope it will lead me towards fighting for the title.”
There is the impression that you didn’t deliver to your full potential in 2008. How are you going to change that this year?“I think I went into 2008 in a very strong frame of mind, and feeling very positive – but looking back now, maybe it took longer than I anticipated to learn about the team and how to use the people in the team to help me. I also put a little bit too much pressure on myself when things didn’t quite go my way – and I’ve learned not to worry too much about that now. I want to enjoy myself when I go racing. I definitely feel like I’ve really learned more about this team and how we can work together to get better results – it’s something that Lewis already knew very well and I can see how that helped him last year. Now I feel much better prepared than I did last year.”
You had quite a bit of a taste of the MP4-24. What is your impression? Compared to last year’s car is it more coming your way?“For me, it’s still too early to say how the car will behave when we are in Melbourne – firstly, because we are still bringing new parts to the car and have not yet run the car you will see in Australia. Secondly, I seem to spend most of my time driving the new car in the wet so I can’t give you a really accurate clue about how it will behave in the warmth of Australia!”
Experienced race drivers are said to be able to feel the potential of a new car the moment they take it out of the pits the first time. What would you say are the up-sides of the MP4-24 - and where do you see deficits that you will concentrate on at the remaining tests before Melbourne?“Well, unfortunately my first opportunity to take MP4-24 out of the pits took a long time to happen because of the wet weather in Portimao! I had to wait a little while before I first drove it, at Jerez in February. We have a good package – but we don’t know how good it is compared to the others – and we won’t know until Melbourne. We are bringing new parts to the car all the time and are working hard in every area – KERS, tyres, aero, engine; there’s no single area that we are focusing on because every area is important.”
The weather during the winter test period was far from being ideal for any team and their programs - whether they tested in Jerez, Algarve, Mugello or Bahrain. Will that have consequences in the light of the season test ban? How is the situation at McLaren?“Naturally, every team would like to do more testing ahead of the new season. But we understand the reasons for cutting back on testing, and we support those moves. The bad weather is not what you wish for when you are a driver, but it has been the same for everybody – it has been raining a lot in Europe and there were big sandstorms in Bahrain. It might actually make the racing more unpredictable and exciting, particularly during the early races, because the teams won’t have finished their pre-season programmes. That should be good for the fans, I think.”
KERS is still a dark horse. How was your encounter with this new technology? Will you use it in the first race – and when will that decision be made?“We have always planned to run KERS throughout the season and we are working hard to have the system ready for Melbourne. In fact, the KERS programme has been going very well over the winter – we have put a lot of miles on the unit and have not had too many problems – so I hope we race it sooner rather than later. From a driver’s point of view, it’s more fun to have a boost switch in your cockpit – and I hope it makes the races more exciting.”
Drivers where working very hard on themselves over the winter: some were sliming down, others built up muscles - what did you do? Obviously you had no reason for a KERS diet...“I’ve really enjoyed training over the winter. I went back to Finland and did a lot of cross-country skiing to build up my core fitness levels. Since then, I’ve been working with my trainer to get ready for the new season. I feel fitter and better prepared now than I did a year ago and I’m convinced that will have a real positive effect on the race results too.”
Risking a look into the crystal ball: What do you see for the first 2 races? And where do you see yourself?“Honestly, who knows? Everybody at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has been working so hard over the winter and we feel we have a strong package – but who knows how much everyone else has done over the winter? That’s what makes Formula 1 so fascinating and unpredictable. And that’s also why I can’t wait to get to Melbourne to find out!”
Source McLaren
