Kovalainen looking forward to slicks in 2009

Formula One driver not overly satisfied with season's showing

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Heikki Kovalainen is healthily discontent with his first season driving for McLaren-Mercedes.
      "Finishing 7th in the drivers' championship table is really not a good enough performance in a car of that quality", said Kovalainen on Tuesday, when he was in Helsinki to meet the press.
      "When it comes down to it, my position was the same as I achieved a year earlier in a noticeably less competitive car [Kovalainen was driving for Renault in 2007]."
     
However, the man from Suomussalmi in the north is not looking back, but forwards to the 2009 season.
      "There's no cause to be negative about it, but every reason to try harder and do better next time."
      Kovalainen is looking forward to some rule changes for the cars in the 2009 F1 season, although he is not yet quite sure what effects they will all bring.
      "I do believe that the change back to slick tyres [banned in the sport since 1998] will benefit me. I had good results in the lower formulas when driving with slicks", Kovalainen told Helsingin Sanomat.
      "Slicks give you a bit more room to attack and the grip is better. I'm looking forward with some interest to see for the first time how they perform on an F1 car."
      He will get this opportunity in the second week of December, when the McLaren team has a three-day testing session on the Jerez track in Spain.
     
Tyre tests will be carried out for the time being on the 2008 model of the car. The new McLaren marque for 2009 will be in the drivers' hands at the end of January or in early February.
      As for the other changes introduced by the FIA for next year, the most important concern vehicle aerodynamics.
      "There may be a bit less downforce on the cars, but that doesn't really bother me. Hopefully the aerodynamics changes will make it easier to drive close behind the guy in front and make for a greater amount of overtaking and overtaking opportunities."
      When he turns his mind back over the 2008 season, Heikki Kovalainen has not found any stand-out thread to his own mistakes - or at least to things that he could do anything about in the future.
      "In fact I didn't make that many mistakes during the season. It was more that I had technical problems such that I couldn't get off the grid or bring the car home, or else I had to start from a difficult position way down the grid."
     
One's worst opponent in Formula One is alway's one's teammate, who is to all intents and purposes driving the same car around the same track.
      Kovalainen's starting-point for the 2009 season is not exactly easy, as he will be racing alongside the reigning F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
      "Yes, it could be easier, but it doesn't bother me in the least. In fact I could say it works the other way - if I can beat my teammate, I know i must be quick and doing something right."
      Kovalainen is completely convinced that the McLaren stable will be even-handed and will give both their drivers an equal car and service in 2009.
     
In other respects, too, McLaren get the thumbs-up from the Finnish driver, who says his past year was a positive experience.
      "McLaren has actually been a better place to work than I expected when I joined them. I'd heard all kinds of talk beforehand about it being a cold sort of place, but I haven't noticed any of that while I've been there. The feeling in the team is good and concentration on the job in hand was 100% all season. The team did a huge amount of work to secure the success we had", says Kovalainen, in talking of the life behind the scenes.
      He also says that his relationship with Lewis Hamilton needs no improving.
      "We both live in the same sort of area and have been doing stuff together off the track in the countryside from time to time", says Kovalainen, who makes his home in Oxfordshire these days.
      "On the track, but only on the track, we compete tooth and nail, which is just as it should be."
     


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Kovalainen scores career first F1 victory in Budapest (4.8.2008)

Links:
  Heikki Kovalainen Unofficial Site
  Heikki Kovalainen (Wikipedia)
  McLaren-Mercedes
  2009 Formula One Season (Wikipedia)

Helsingin Sanomat