Expecting a better weekend in Montreal - Kovalainen

After a rather disappointing race for Heikki Kovalainen at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Finnish Renault F1 Team driver is hoping for a better weekend in Montreal. After entertaining the Polish crowd during the Renault Roadshow at Warsaw, the youngster will travel to Canada to prepare himself for the Canadian Grand Prix that is scheduled for this weekend.

"As I said at the time, there is not really much to take from the weekend. I didn’t have a chance to set a good time on Thursday, and it got worse from there. I was doubly disappointed because I know how hard the team has worked to give Giancarlo and myself a more consistent and faster car. But that’s in the past now. I am focused on the Canadian Grand Prix, and on continuing to improve my performance."

"In general, when I am preparing for a race on a circuit I don’t know, I try and get the onboard camera images from previous seasons so I can see what the track looks like from the cockpit, understand the racing line and work out things like braking points, and which kerbs you can use. Then, on Thursday, I do a lap of the circuit on foot with my engineers, and along with the data from previous years, we do a kind of inspection, talking about each corner. Then on Friday, we really get down to work, and I can begin to see if my preparation has worked out. I hope it pays off this weekend."

"Canada is all about finding a good compromise between top speed, for which we use a low downforce package, and stability under braking and through the chicanes, in which we need good grip. There are some quite quick chicanes, in third and fourth gears, and we worked on this area in particular at the Paul Ricard test, as the circuit configuration we used included corners of this type, so we could evaluate the car in the right conditions."

"Yes, absolutely. We have to get the brake cooling right, and you often hear the engineers asking drivers to slow down to look after the brakes, which can be a difficult situation to manage in race conditions. We worked on this area as well during testing, and the team will be paying special attention to the brakes in the opening sessions to ensure we are in a good situation for the race."