A race to forget - Kovalainen

The ING Renault F1 Team’s Finnish driver, Heikki Kovalainen had a difficult afternoon at the Nürburgring, as he explains. The rookie driver finished the European Grand Prix in 8th place and collected one point for his team.

"Well, I don’t think there’s really a lot you can say. I made a great start and was in fourth place by the end of the first lap, and then came the first rain. I immediately pitted and put on wet tyres and the conditions were very very difficult until the red flag. The cars were aquaplaning everywhere. After the restart the race settled down until the rain began to fall again."

"Yes, of course. I leave here with just one point and we thought it was possible to do better. But when a grand prix goes this way with a succession of unforeseen events, you always have to think ahead and try to use a better strategy than your rivals. In other words, you have to take risks."

"When the first few drops of the second shower began to fall, I immediately put on rain tyres. It was a gamble but I really didn’t have all that much choice as I had to stop again anyway. The tyres’ performance level fell away on the dry track so they were not all that effective when it got really wet."

"There are two: first of all, analyse today’s race to understand why we weren’t as competitive as we expected; secondly, we’ll have to prepare for this week’s test in Jerez before Budapest. It’ll be the last one before the summer break and we have to use it to fine-tune our overall package. We’re still optimistic and motivated!"