McLaren 'still has faith' in Kovalainen

Date published : 14 Sep 2009 - 10:09:51

McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh insists that Heikki Kovalainen could still stay on with the team next year despite his disappointing race performances. Whitmarsh had hinted earlier in the year that Kovalainen's chance of being retained for a third season depended on him raising his game in the grands prix, where he has tended to be out-performed by team-mate Lewis Hamilton even when he has been faster than the world champion in qualifying. Although he took a strong sixth from 15th on the grid in Belgium, he had failed to convert a front row start in Valencia into a podium finish.Then at Monza yesterday he fell back to sixth despite having qualified fourth - the fastest of the one-stopping cars and quickest of all on fuel corrected times. When asked if he was disappointed with Kovalainen's race day slump, Whitmarsh replied: "Yes, of course I am, and so is Heikki. "I think it was a great, great qualifying. "We had spread bet and were in a position to be at the front of the two-stoppers and the front of the two-stoppers. "But it was disappointing." Paddock speculation has linked Kimi Raikkonen with a return to McLaren from Ferrari in Kovalainen's place, or Nico Rosberg arriving from Williams for 2010. Whitmarsh denied that Kovalainen had now blown his chances of keeping his seat. "No of course he hasn t," he insisted. "We take a longer term view of his performance and his contribution to this team, and he's a great team player and a great asset to this team. "At the end of the day, the most difficult thing is to find drivers who are quick, and he is quick, he is technically good." Kovalainen tumbled down the order on the harder tyres in his first stint, and Whitmarsh said McLaren ought to share the blame for this - suggesting he would have fared better on softs. "We may have made a mistake as a team - we had him on the prime tyre," Whitmarsh explained. "He had no grip and was struggling. "In hindsight, we probably should have started on the option tyre, so that contributed to it. "Once you drop back through the grid, it's pretty difficult to recover from that situation."