In Bahrain, Heikki Kovalainen returned to the cockpit of a Formula 1 car after Caterham chose Giedo van der Garde over him to support Charles Pic as a main driver. Following a difficult start to the season, the Malaysian team decided to entrust him with their unmodified CT03, in which he was six-tenths of a second slower than Charles Pic, who benefited from the latest upgrades: “I could feel that the car is more difficult to drive than it was last year,” the Finn commented to Sky Sports F1. “Of course, some things have changed, the tires have changed, and consequently, the settings too. Because of these two things, the car has become more difficult to drive. On the other hand, I could feel there was more potential to exploit in this car, and I felt, after driving the car, that we should be able to beat Marussia, and now, with the upcoming upgrades, we should be in a position to beat them.”<\/p>\n
In Barcelona, Heikki Kovalainen will once again participate in the Friday morning free practice sessions, but he has already gotten an idea of the new features Caterham might bring during a promotional event where the Leafield team took the opportunity to evaluate new parts, including a brand new nose with a cover. The CT03 was indeed one of the few 2013 single-seaters to have retained the distinctive stepped nose of its predecessor, the CT01: a platypus nose that could, therefore, be removed as early as the Spanish Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
On Sky Sports F1<\/i>, the native of Suomussalmi also took the opportunity to talk about the circumstances of his return to Caterham, specifically denying the rumors of a falling-out with Tony Fernandes, the owner of the Leafield team: \u00ab It’s false, I never had a falling-out with him. I didn’t agree with what they were offering me this year, I disagreed with Tony on that, but I never had a conflict with him. Then, at one point, I think it was during the qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix when the weather conditions were quite tricky, I sent Tony a message saying: “I would have qualified in Q2.” And then we started discussing it, and he asked me if I wanted to try the car. \u00bb<\/p>\n
Faithful to Caterham, Heikki Kovalainen assures he has been, denying having had serious discussions with any team, particularly with Marussia, where some sent him after the eviction of Luiz Razia: \u00ab There were never any serious discussions, so it was never really an option. In fact, I never truly talked with other teams. I spoke with Caterham for a while, until they announced their second driver, and I never really talked with anyone. \u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After evaluating some developments of the Caterham CT03 at Magny-Cours and before taking the wheel again in Barcelona, Heikki Kovalainen says he is convinced that Caterham can beat Marussia. The Finn also denies having had serious discussions with the Anglo-Russian team or having fallen out with Tony Fernandes, the owner of Caterham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":40757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,1749],"tags":[132,578],"class_list":["post-17437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","category-news","tag-caterham","tag-kovalainen"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n