Sunday: Caterham reassured about its level
It seems that the weekend's weather mirrored Caterham's form. The first two days, marked by rain, saw the English team dissatisfied with their speed, while they turned things around on Sunday. While Vitaly Petrov had an uneventful race leading him to 16th place, ahead of a Williams, Heikki Kovalainen experienced an issue with his tires which forced him to make an extra pit stop.
Vitaly Petrov – 16th:
« I am satisfied with my performance today. It was a pretty wise race for me, and the car was good from the first lap, so I think I got everything I could from it this afternoon. The last stint was particularly good – I knew Senna was on Soft tires behind me, and I had to make sure to stay ahead, so I made a point to reach the finish without making any mistakes, and the team and I are happy with where we finished. It is encouraging that the car proved better today. Our pace in the first laps was good, as it has been all season, and we hope to continue like this in Hungary – certainly, we now have a lot more data to work with from this double finish, so that should help us even more next weekend. »
Heikki Kovalainen – 19th:
My start to the race was good. The car was better than it has been most weekends and I was able to push, but then I sensed a problem after the second stop and from that point, the front tires were graining much more than they should have. We made a final stop to change the nose to see if that could fix the issue, and indeed after that, everything was back to normal and I just focused on bringing the car to the finish. It’s quite clear that high temperatures are where we are better, so we hope to be even faster in Hungary. It’s a track I like and obviously, I had my first win there, so let’s see what happens next weekend.
