Kovalainen is (very) confident for the rest of the weekend!
Heikki Kovalainen did not have a very good day this Chinese Friday. The Finn, after his podium in Japan, performed well with the R27, but in the 2nd session, he encountered a mechanical problem that forced him to cut many laps from his program. He only completed 40 laps of the Shanghai circuit. However, the […]
Heikki Kovalainen did not have a very good day this Chinese Friday. The Finn, after his podium in Japan, performed well with the R27, but in the 2nd session, he encountered a mechanical problem that forced him to cut many laps from his program. He only completed 40 laps of the Shanghai circuit.
However, the Renault driver seems more motivated than ever to deliver a good performance, especially since rain is expected to make a return this weekend.
What happened this afternoon?
We encountered a small problem with the fuel coupler, but we were able to bring the car back to the pits and repair it quickly. Nothing serious, fortunately… Just a simple connector that loosened a bit and I lost fuel pressure.
Did you have time to do your tire comparison?
« If the weather stays like this, then on the dry track, the soft tires will be the fastest. I didn’t have time to do my long runs, I need to see what Giancarlo did… But at first glance, both types of tires seem consistent over long stints. But I can’t tell you more because I couldn’t do my long runs! »
You are among the fastest on the straight line. Tell us about it…
« If you look at the last races, we were already very fast on the straights with our “medium downforce” setup. We’ll have to study what we will do tomorrow. Are we going to add a bit of downforce or not? I don’t know, all I know is that I’m satisfied with the balance of the car for now. I didn’t do a perfect lap today, but I sincerely believe that we are faster than our lap times suggest. We might also have a bit more fuel than the others. We can be satisfied with our level of performance. »
One last word on the weather… Rain or not?
« We should bring out the rain tires again this Sunday! I’m sure it’s going to rain for the race. Tomorrow, I don’t know, it will once again be a kind of gamble on the level of downforce we will use for qualifying. I think we are going to prepare for dry qualifying, and if it rains on Sunday, we’ll do like in Fuji: we’ll get on the podium! »
