Renault drivers disappointed not to score points for the first time this season

For the first time this season ING Renault F1 Team drivers, Giancarlo Fisichella and Heikki Kovalainen, failed to score points at the Chinese Grand Prix at Shanghai yesterday. They tell us what happened.

HK: "The opening laps were a real disaster for me. I moved up three places at the start and then fell back four because of severe understeer. The team did a great job by putting me on grooved tyres at just the right moment. The only problem was that when I came out I found myself behind Kimi who was on wets. It was impossible to move off line to overtake him. I lost eight seconds before being able to get past."

GF: "The car was pretty heavy because of the strategy we chose before the start. That didn’t help us early on. We’d both have been much quicker with less fuel. As Heikki said, the team anticipated the change from intermediates to grooved tyres at just the right moment. That enabled us fight our way back up through the field."

HK: "Yes. At the end I pulled in David Coulthard. I was a bit faster than him but I couldn’t find the right opening. We paid dearly for my mistake in qualifying yesterday. If I’d started in the top ten my race would have been very different. The team deserved a much better result. Fourth was within our grasp today."

GF: "The grand prix was too short for us! We needed just a little more time to get into the points. It’s really frustrating to finish eleventh in a race like this one in which we overtook several cars. We had the potential to finish much higher up. It’s a pity."