Kovalainen content while Petrov struggles with setup
Caterham completed the Hungarian GP by putting in a decent performance on the last event before F1's summer break. Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov both had better pace than during qualifying, allowing them to finish 17th and 19th respectively.
Heikki Kovalainen, car 20, chassis CT01-#3, 17th:
“It was a decent race. I made a good start and got up to 16th on the first lap and maintained a pretty good pace for the whole race from there. We’re realistic about the performance of the car, but I think the balance and setup were very good this weekend.
“I’m also really pleased with how we managed the tyres and I think the strategy worked well. The Hungaroring is a difficult track to overtake on, so we didn’t think we'd be able to make up too many places, but I’m very happy with how the car performed and feel that the team has done a great job this weekend.
“I’ll be keeping busy during the summer break, lots of fitness training and spending time with friends, and then I’ll be looking forward to getting stuck into the second half of the season.”
Vitaly Petrov, car 21, chassis CT01-#2, 19th:
“Overall this weekend has been a valuable lesson for us. In the race the car felt very different to how it performed in qualifying and we need to go back and look at the data to try and understand why. It’s a bit strange as we had definitely improved it over the weekend, but in the race it just didn’t feel the same. We have tried a few different setups this weekend, and we know what works, and what doesn’t. When we’ve had time to look through all the data from today’s race we’ll understand what happened today and we’ll make sure we learn from that for the rest of the season.
“On the positive side I think the team worked really well this weekend, and I’m really looking forward to the summer break. I hope everyone in the team can get some well deserved rest and then I’m really looking forward to getting on with the second half of the season.”
Mark Smith, Technical Director:
“We have reached the end of the first half of the season and today’s race is a fair indication of where we are. Both drivers performed as well as we could have wanted and they ran faultlessly today. The pitstops and the strategy were both good and the efforts everyone has made, here on track and back at the factory, cannot be questioned.
“However, we are not where we want to be and we know we have work to do to achieve the goals we have set for this season. The positives are that we have a break ahead of us, giving us time to take stock and recharge the batteries, and we then have the second half of the season to reach the level of performance we want for the 2012 season. We have the infrastructure in place, we have the right people and with the move to Leafield we have the facility so everything is in place.”
Riad Asmat, CEO:
“I am reasonably pleased with how we have ended the first half of the season. Both drivers, the team in the garage and on the pitwall did well today.
“I will take some positives out of the first half of the season, but the team now needs to use the break to recharge and then come back fighting. We understand that we have much more work to do in order to progress as quickly as we would like, and I believe we will return after the summer break feeling energised and with our entire focus on continuing to grow the team and to keep on taking measured steps forwards.”
