Thursday: Kovalainen on foot but satisfied at Caterham
Although he finished both free practice sessions on foot, Heikki Kovalainen has a rather positive assessment of his day, just like Vitaly Petrov, who believes he has a good foundation to build on before moving on to the serious stuff on Saturday and Sunday.
Heikki Kovalainen – 18th and 21st:
The session this morning went quite well. We quickly tried new suspension components and they worked quite well, and then we carried out the usual work of Free Practice 1 with Soft tires, until the engine died as I was entering the tunnel at the end of the session. As soon as I engaged neutral, the rear axle locked up, leading to an early end of the session.
In Free Practice 2, everyone encountered the same problems with the rain, and even though we were able to do a few laps with the Super Softs, I didn’t have the opportunity to do a proper lap with these tires, so we’ll have to work on that on Saturday. We did the last stint with the Intermediates and, approaching turn 5, the car went straight on: it was very slippery, but there was no damage, so I stopped, and that was it.
Vitaly Petrov – 19th and 16th:
The two sessions went well for me today. Even though we obviously would have liked to have more time to run with the Super Softs before the rain interrupted us, it was the same for pretty much everyone, so we’re all in the same position.
In Free Practice 2, the car behaved quite well even if the track was very slippery when we went out with the Intermediates, I still felt that we had a good balance to work from. It’s a race where you have to make sure to see the checkered flag and not make mistakes, so after doing a few laps in what were probably the most challenging conditions of the weekend, I feel good before the next sessions and Sunday’s race.
