Heikki Kovalainen interview

Date published : 11 Feb 2010 - 08:40:55

Heikki Kovalainen joined McLaren with high hopes and when he started giving illustrious team-mate Lewis Hamilton a few scares and then won the 2008 Hungarian Grand Prix, it looked like his career was really taking off.But the rest of his McLaren stint proved tough, and his reputation took a battering amid public criticism from the team at the end of last year.Now he is taking on a fresh challenge by moving to Lotus, where he hopes to help the exciting new team make its mark in Formula 1 and to remind everyone of the talent that saw him billed alongside Hamilton, Robert Kubica and Nico Rosberg as an emerging superstar of the mid-2000s.As he prepared for the Lotus-Cosworth's launch later this week, Kovalainen talked to itv.com/f1's James Galloway about his recent difficulties and his optimistism for the future.ITV.com/F1: You officially became a Lotus driver just before Christmas, so how's the settling in process going Heikki Kovalainen: I'm settling in very well. There's a lot of work to do and I've spent a lot of time at our base in the UK just getting to know the team, the engineers and everybody. Our first car has arrived here now too. But I feel good; I feel like there is a big challenge ahead of us but I look forward to that. So all is fine.ITV.com/F1: The Lotus name has got a rich heritage in Formula 1 when you signed for the team how aware were you of that history HK: Yeah, obviously I knew a little bit about it and that they were very successful in the past.It was very interesting for me to join that kind of team and of course the team will have a lot to do to keep the name going like it has gone in the past. Obviously the first year will be tough for us, especially at the beginning as we are quite late [starting], but I think we have all the potential to become successful like Lotus has been in the past and we are working towards that. That's the challenge for us.ITV.com/F1: As a start-up operation, Lotus is very different from the kind of team you experienced at McLaren and Renault. Were your first couple of weeks there a bit of a culture shock compared with what you've been used to in your F1 career so far HK: Of course it is very different in terms of the size of the team. The first time that I arrived here there weren't many people working here yet and Mike Gascoyne was saying to me Look, don't worry, it will be fine. Everything will be up and running by the time you come here next time.' So of course it was very different, but I was expecting that I knew that we start from zero so it was always going to be a very different start. But now we have more people working here and everything starts to run little by little. Actually, just the size of the team is lower, but apart from that the enthusiasm is even higher than some of the other teams I've worked for before. The work really goes the very same way as it did at McLaren and as it did at Renault. You've got a lot of professional people here who have been working in the past in Formula 1, and most of the people were even working last year in the other teams so they are very current people and up to the pace of Formula 1. So that's not very different and for me everything that we have done so far is very similar.ITV.com/F1: You have said that when you left McLaren you had offers from several other teams, so what convinced you to join Lotus How did Mike Gascoyne and Tony Fernandes sell the team to you HK: Just when I was talking to everybody and seeing what was the situation, I was getting the feeling even more and more that the other teams there started to be question marks who is selling the team, who is not selling the team, who is going to buy All these questions little by little were coming out and when I was talking to Mike and Tony I said can you explain a little bit about the Lotus programme ' because I didn't know about it very much and then I became convinced that they are actually very, very stable. Tony is 100% behind the project and Mike, on the technical side, has been able to put a very strong technical team together already. Those were the key factors for me and so I decided to come here. I felt that I needed to go somewhere different to try a different way and here hopefully I will be able to get 100% out of the team every time. And that was really a key factor for me.ITV.com/F1: So looking back at your time at McLaren, how would you sum up the experience overall Do you feel you've improved as a driver or was it more frustration that you could get the kind of results you were looking for when you first joined HK: For me I think everything else at McLaren worked very well and they are a fantastic team, but just the results were disappointing. They were not what we were hoping for I was hoping for better results and so was McLaren, and it didn't work out for me like we were planning. But apart from that I'm sure it was a very valuable experience for me, I learned a lot there, and I can bring a lot of the way they go racing to here. I've seen a race-winning, world-class team working so I'm sure I can put that into good use here. But perhaps if I could go back in time¦ I would still go to McLaren if there was the opportunity like two years ago, that's for sure, but I would do things very different there.ITV.com/F1: What would you do differently HK: I don't really want to go into that too much. I've analysed it a lot myself, why the results were not very good. We worked very hard with McLaren. We did absolutely everything to try and make it work out better but it just didn't. I think I know the reasons why it didn't work out and I will do things differently here at Lotus. But I don't want to get into that too much it's gone now, it's gone, the past time for me. A shame I didn't win more races but that's the way it is sometimes. It's also fair to say that the beginning of last year perhaps the timing wasn't very good the car was not very competitive and it took a while to sort the car out. So that's the way it is.ITV.com/F1: There were several times last year when you were publicly criticised for your race pace by the team management. Would you say that was justified and did you feel you always got enough support from the team to at least try and work through the issues you were having HK: I'm sure many people had this sort of picture about myself that I'm a good qualifier but not a good racer. But my opinion is that this has only been true during my McLaren years. In the other years, in the junior categories and at Renault, I'd say that my race performances were stronger than my qualifying. I think that at McLaren I was able to improve the qualifying performances from previous years but race performances were not what they should have been and I think I know the reasons why. Like I said, we did try very hard with all the team, together with everybody there, but it just didn't work out and I guess that's one of the key points for this year to make sure that the race performances are back where they have been [in the past]. And I think I can do that here. Whether we have a competitive car to be up the front I don't necessarily expect that, but the relative performance in races compared to qualifying is a bit of a point for me to prove. That's one of the key targets for this year.ITV.com/F1: Do you feel generally that you have got something to prove to the paddock about your capabilities and talent again after your McLaren spell, given that towards the end of your first F1 season at Renault you had some fantastic performances and great results HK: I've always had 100% confidence in my own ability and I have a lot of people around me that have kept supporting me. I don't really have any problems with the criticism from people, public or management or whoever commenting outside. I'm quite well aware myself where I am, where I'm at and what needs to be done and for me it's quite easy to go work with that philosophy. And it doesn't really bother me what people say outside. But of course I want to achieve better results in Formula 1 and to become a world champion for me the best option, the best chance for me, was to go somewhere else. Perhaps not in the shorter term but the longer term, and that's why I took this challenge. Of course to stay in Formula 1 and be among the top drivers there you have to do good performances and at McLaren I wasn't able to do that so in that sense, yeah, I have to sort of prove myself again to get my name back up there where it should be. I'm confident I can do that.ITV.com/F1: So are you looking at Lotus as a long-term option for your career, rather than a one-year stepping stone back into a top, or more established, team then You see yourself growing and improving as a driver here HK: Absolutely. I think it's very important to be able to get 100% out of the team and like I said I felt I wasn't able to get everything out of the team at McLaren and if you don't get everything out of the team you can't possibly get a good result. So that's why I decided to come here. To expect to get any good results in the first year is not very realistic. If we are able to bring a car that is unbelievably quick for some reason then maybe, but I think I have to look at this for the longer term as we don't have a proper foundation yet to be able to challenge the top teams and that is the target. I'm not planning to stay here just for one year and then go back to a top team. I think Lotus has all the potential to become a top team and to be involved when that happens, to be here when it happens, I think is the key factor. To be in a position to get everything from the team at that time is crucial. Of course, possibly people see it as quite a risky move, but I made that decision, I had to judge it myself, and even some of the other established teams I felt that [they were not as secure]¦ Maybe for one year they would have had a car that is quicker but then again to be in a position with the team to get everything out of it I saw Lotus as the best [option]. ITV.com/F1: Looking ahead to Lotus's first season, given that you're not joining pre-season testing until the third group test at Jerez what do you think will be realistically achievable in the opening quartet of flyaway races Will it be a case of simply trying to get more mileage on the car rather than chasing results HK: I think we should set some more accurate goals so that we know roughly where our performances are. At the moment I can't tell really anything as I don't know where our car will be compared to the performance of the other teams. If the car is proving to be reasonably quick then I think we should raise the bar, but apart from that I think we should certainly target being ahead of the other new teams that is the first step for us. But also as we have the Lotus name in our car I think we fairly quickly need to make improvements to the car. I expect the car to be reasonably reliable from the beginning, I think it is going to be a solid car, but we haven't had time to work with it in the wind tunnel very much so I don't expect it to have the downforce that some of the top teams like Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari have and I don't think it's realistic to expect that. But rather than just putting the mileage on the car I think we need to set a decent goal, a more realistic target after a couple of tests and just before the first race. We need to have some kind of target that we know we can achieve and push the maximum to try to do that. If we just go out there and do the races as tests it's very easy for everybody to relax and not to be 100% motivated, so I think we need to set a target but at the moment we've just got to see where we're going to be.ITV.com/F1: You mention the extra expectation that comes with running the Lotus name. Do you think that means the team is under more pressure than the other new squads to perform well HK: Yes, absolutely. I'm sure everybody who is involved in the project, Tony and everybody, knows that people will want respectable results already in the first year. Obviously that doesn't mean we have to be winning races that's not really realistic but people need to see we have exceeded the expectations at least, we have made clear progress. That's what we have to do and that's what puts the pressure on the team. And I think that's good because it will push everybody to work harder and work even more and I think that we have a lot of people here that are capable of doing a very good job in Formula 1. With the name and the history and some old, hard-core Lotus fans, they expect to see a good performance. I have seen some of the forums on the internet and some of the fans that we have and all the Lotus fans are expecting us to do well already in the first year.ITV.com/F1: So what kind of result would you look to be achieving by the end of year When do you think will be a sensible time to target points by HK: I just don't know that because I haven't seen any performance of the car yet or information relative to the other people. I think we have really to wait for the first few days on track and get the feeling, how it seems and where we are, and after that we will know better. Hopefully the car comes out of the box a positive surprise in that it is actually performing better than what we are expecting and what everybody is expecting, and then hopefully we can see decent improvement throughout the year. I think we have some upgrades coming for the European season and that probably will give us a step forward. I'd like to be able to fight for points towards the end of the season but that might be totally unrealistic if the car is nowhere at the beginning it's just so hard to say. But I think the whole point is that we have to have some kind of target that we know we can achieve rather than just go out and have fun. If we know that we can be 15th then we need try to be 15th or better. If we can only be 20th then we have to at least be there. We have to have some target to work towards.ITV.com/F1: How much do you know of the backing that is coming from Malaysia for the team and do you think that such support is going to be a big asset HK: Yes, I think that is absolutely crucial asset for our team. When we made the announcement [about the driver line-up] in KL I went to see quite a lot of the local people there, I saw the prime minister and I saw other people that are aware about this project and are fully behind it. Tony has been able to get very important contacts for this team already now and I think that is absolutely crucial for us because you need to have a stable budget, you need to have a budget that you can go racing [with] and develop the car. Not just to go build the car and then go and run it, you need to develop it throughout the year and Mike and the technical team need to be able to push the wind tunnel [work] and the design team through the rest of the year. That's what we need. It's very important for us and that's also one of the key factors for the team that we have a solid budget, we have a good backing from the Malaysian side as well, so we have a solid operation that we can run throughout the year and we can make improvements. Hopefully that will help put us ahead of the other new teams at least and close to the back of the established teams and that's already quite impressive I think. If we can do that in a very short time this year I'd be very happy about it.ITV.com/F1: Not for the first time in your short F1 career you're paired with an experienced team-mate in the form of Jarno Trulli. Are you looking forward to working with him HK: First of all I know Jarno quite well and I've always got on very well with him when I've met him at the races in the past. I'm sure together we can help the team, especially at the beginning we can help the team a lot I think that's one of the key factors why they wanted to have two drivers with a reasonable amount of experience so that we don't need to get used to the car and get used to the speed, we can straight away start making progress. I think that's going to be quite crucial for our season, the initial tests we need to be able to find a direction with the set-up and the balance of the car very quickly. The whole operation, how everything is running, I've seen how McLaren runs and Jarno has obviously seen how Toyota and many other good teams have been running, so we can point out many things that we see that are not correct and I've already done that a lot here at Lotus. I feel I've been able to bring a lot of useful information here and [advice as to] what should be done. The team has reacted to that and that's very important. And, of course, Jarno is a very good driver as well and I'm sure we can push each other and that's very important as well.ITV.com/F1: Jarno has always been seen as a qualifying ace. As you have discussed, that's an area many people think you're particularly strong in too so that should be an interesting head-to-head shouldn't it HK: I'm looking forward to that. Of course, like I said, [the perception] of only being a good qualifier and not a good racer is only really true from my McLaren time. At Renault it was almost the other way round if anything. So I think it should be interesting and it will certainly be very interesting to go against Jarno; he's been very, very quick at all the other teams he's been at but I take it as a nice challenge. I've been against Lewis Hamilton in qualifying as well so I'm not worried about it, but Jarno will keep me on the toes and if I don't get everything out of the car then for sure he will be ahead of me so that's something that I need to keep pushing.ITV.com/F1: You mention Lewis there, after two years alongside him at McLaren how do you think you think you fared against him Were there times when you looked at his times or telemetry and thought wow, that's impressive' Or do you think maybe in different circumstances you could have beaten him more regularly HK: Of course the results are the ones that are always talking and there's really no point to try to explain things that possibly are complicated¦ It's fair to say that Lewis is a very strong driver and he was able to get more out of the car and the team than I was. But of course just looking at his telemetry, I never thought that there was something magical that I wouldn't be able to do if I was thinking that I should probably be doing something else. I still believe that I can put up a fight against anyone in Formula 1, even against Lewis, but for sure he's one of the best drivers there, he's got good experience already now and already in his first year he was very competitive so he's clearly a very talented guy and I'm sure he will do well again this year. I had a good time with him, he was a great team-mate to be with and we never had any big problems. It was just a shame we were not able to race more often just the two of us on the race track perhaps in the future we can do that. But I never had any problems with him.ITV.com/F1: Looking ahead to the new season, it's the first time you'll race in F1 without refuelling stops. Are you looking forward to that new challenge of managing heavy fuel and tyres over a longer distance HK: It's hard to say what to expect. I don't know exactly how it will affect the tyres etc. I think Bridgestone are planning to change some of the compounds so it might not be as big a difference as people might think. Certainly at the beginning of the races when there are a lot of cars around on the first lap they will be more difficult to drive so we will need to be a little bit more careful perhaps. But I think the drivers will get used to it, we start testing with a bit more fuel already and after a while everyone will get used to it. So I don't expect it to make a big difference. It's a bit like when the traction control went away, just very quickly the drivers got used to it and it becomes just a normal feeling for us. I have no problem with any of the rule changes to be honest I hope they improve the show.ITV.com/F1: What do think the chances of that happening are, particularly towards the end of the race when some people's tyres are more worn HK: My feeling is that it is probably not going to make a big difference as it should do. I don't know, but my worry is that the drivers will get used to it, the teams will get used to it and if the tyre compounds are becoming a little bit less extreme than they were in some cases last year then it doesn't matter too much on which tyre you are on. It will be interesting to see how it affects [things], but the teams and the drivers get used to these things so quickly and it is already so close in Formula 1 between the teams that overtaking will still be hard because of the wings and the aerodynamics involved. I mean I hope I'm wrong but¦ ITV.com/F1: Finally, as you touched on earlier, there have been some big changes in F1 over the winter nowhere more so than at Renault. Knowing the team as you do, do you think they will be able to rebound this season and perhaps regain their former strength in the years ahead HK: Yeah, absolutely. I think there are a lot of fantastic people working for Renault. When I was there [as a race driver in 2007] I think the timing was a little bit unfortunate because they [won] championship the year before, then when the rules changed the performance of the car was not on that same level and the tyres were very different so it took the team a little while to adapt to them. But they have all the capacity [to come back] and I think they have even increased their capacity, especially on the aerodynamic side, so I'm sure they have all the ingredients to be competitive again. I'm sure Robert Kubica has gone there because he knows the same and also knowing Robert and Fernando, they are good friends, I'm sure Fernando has said to Robert go there, they know what they do' kind of thing. Certainly there are a lot of good people there. Funnily enough there are also a few people from Renault that are working now at Lotus so I have got a few old friends from there so it shows that the people that Mike has been getting here, there are some people from Renault that are very highly regarded. There are a few people also from Toyota, Red Bull, Force India there are a lot of current people here, but also people from Renault so it shows that people regard them quite highly. So I think they have all the chances of becoming successful and they are probably now in a more stable condition again with obviously the tough year behind them. I think they went through that very well, they have managed to put it all behind [them] now and just focus on building a good car.