Saturday: Petrov rejoices, Kovalainen understeers at Caterham
Often, teams face different situations on both sides of their garages. This is the case for Caterham today: while Vitaly Petrov was able to make up for his lack of track time and perform qualifying sessions that delighted him, Heikki Kovalainen pointed out a lack of balance in his car that prevented him from competing with his teammate.
Vitaly Petrov – 19th and 19th:
« I am really happy with this performance today. I had some issues with the car that cost me track time this weekend, but the team worked really hard to keep us going, so thanks to them for helping me make the most of the three practice sessions and qualifying today.
My last lap was really good, probably as fast as we could be here. We timed it well so that traffic wasn’t an issue, and qualifying more than a second ahead of the other cars is great for the whole team. We haven’t stopped pushing and the goal now is to have a clean start tomorrow and try to replicate this kind of performance.
Heikki Kovalainen – 20th and 20th:
« All weekend, I’ve had difficulty finding settings that I’m happy with, and that continued today in qualifying. We went out for three runs, one with the Softs and two on the Super Softs to help us try to find a balance, but it was impossible today. In my last lap in Q1, I still had understeer in the last four corners – maybe without that, I could have found a bit more time, but the balance wasn’t there. Strategy will be key tomorrow. We saw last weekend in Japan that we can hold our own in the first part of the race, so let’s see if we can turn things around this weekend in the race. »
