The team did a fantastic job - Kovalainen

Heikki Kovalainen, the Finnish ING Renault F1 Team driver, completed his first laps leading a Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon… and ended the day with a strong result. The rookie tells us about his race.

"I’m feeling good, I think it was the best possible result given that McLaren and Ferrari had a trouble-free afternoon. I think the car was quick enough to beat Heidfeld on pace. It was nice to stay in front of Kimi in the first stint too, and I had some good fights with Nick… Luckily, he had a problem and that made life easier. The team did a fantastic job to get this result today."

"I felt completely in control. I could see he was running on the harder tyres, and knew he would only be a threat at the end of the stint because of that. But I didn’t give him any opportunities to pass me. He wasn’t as fast in turn 11 and through the banking. I didn’t make any mistakes, and had a good pace; I might have held him up in absolute terms, but that’s racing."

"I wasn’t much different… I was concentrating on pushing, trying to find a tenth here, a tenth there. It would have been nicer to cross the line in the lead at the end of the race! I always attack, it doesn’t matter what position I am in. I always give the maximum. If the car is working well and it feels good, I push even more; but if I can feel the front or rear going away, I slow a bit. It was fun to see P1 on the pit board, but it didn’t change much about my race."

"I am very happy to have had two good races. I had a solid weekend, and we have a test at Silverstone this week where we are hoping to improve the car a bit more. We will go to the French Grand Prix feeling confident, we are closing in on Ferrari and I don’t think we are far from BMW. It will vary from track to track but if we continue like this, I think we will have chances to fight with them."