Heikki Kovalainen recognises that he has been one of Formula 1’s most positive personalities so far this year as he now looks towards 2011 with just as much optimism. The Finn discusses his new environment, just what felt wrong with McLaren last season and more with GPUpdate.net’s Ivo Pakvis.
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Heikki, you’ve obviously now had your first British Grand Prix with Lotus. Do you personally notice the strong level of support coming from Great Britain?
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We had our classic Team Lotus event at Snetterton and it was incredible, how many people turned up there…at Snetterton, in the middle of the countryside on a Sunday morning! 20,000 people, or something like that, turned up there just to see the Lotus Team Festival and it was pretty hardcore, so it surprised me with how many people are interested and there are a lot of older hardcore Lotus fans from the 70s and early 80s as well as some new, younger fans, which was interesting to see.
I think people are liking Lotus back on the grid although they aren’t wanting us to be at the back of the grid so, for sure, they’re demanding and want us to move up the grid.
So far we’ve been able to move ahead all the time, so I think if we can carry on that trend people will be pleased about it.
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When it became clear that Lotus was going to be one of the new teams, there was initially some scepticism because it’s always difficult to bring back an old name – could you understand that?
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Yeah, of course. I mean, probably some people still think that this isn’t anything to do with the old Lotus, that this is an entirely new operation, that’s understandable. I think, if you look as how the results are at the moment, they are not what they used to be with Lotus; they were at the very top, winning I think six Drivers’ Championships and seven Constructors’ Championships, so they won a lot.
But the whole Chapman family, Hazel and Clive, they’re both fully behind this programme. I’ve chatted to them both, talking about Lotus and Colin, and I think we have a lot to take from that previous Lotus era and I think we have a similar kind of spirit.
We are very racy, hopefully very innovative in the future to find different ways and be a bit different in Formula 1 and, of course, the most important thing is to build a quick car and be competitive on-track.
I think, with the people we’ve put in place, next year’s car will be the first true new Lotus and we can really judge what Lotus can do by next year’s car; I don’t think this year’s car has anything to do with the people we now have in the team – at the beginning of the season they were not yet here and the new car is being designed by different people.
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Looking back at the first half of the year, what’s your general feeling?
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I think it’s gone better than I was expecting but perhaps the reliability problems have been worse than I thought they would be…
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…because you looked very reliable in winter testing…
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…yeah, exactly. We had some initial problems and then at the end of winter testing it looked better. Then we got the second lot, which in a way is quite normal once you get a car running…you get a second lot of problems; once you clear them, the car is quite reliable, but we’ve had them for quite a long time and perhaps not enough testing to get rid of them quickly.
I think it’s also fair to say that the hydraulics have been letting us down too many times, so I don’t think the supplier has done a good enough job, but in the last few races that has been improved.
In terms of performance, in terms of developing the team and the car, moving away from the other new teams and catching the cars ahead of us, I think we’ve done better than expected.
We look cool; we have a new motorhome, the team looks professional. It looks cool and it runs like any other professional race team, so that’s very good.
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I must say, when I compare you to driving a McLaren, or maybe even a Renault, you look more relaxed, happier, in the right place…
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Yeah, I think it’s…I’m not more…I was happy at McLaren as well; it’s a fantastic team, they’re a great team to be with and when things are wrong they can do miracles in a short time and those kinds of things but, especially towards the end of last year, we were trying very hard to improve the results and it was just not happening, it was not functioning, and perhaps running out of energy a little bit towards the end of the season.
On the race weekends I was not 100 percent fresh because we were on the simulators, I was with the designers and engineers and we were working all the time, pushing, pushing, getting going, just maybe trying too hard and it wasn’t working.
This year the balance is better, I’ve had really good fitness over the winter and have been working with the team, it’s a good balance. I’ve now found a better balance than in any other year, managing my energy and how to manage the whole situation throughout the year.
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It really shows because when you were in qualifying at Monaco you had two spins on your last lap; everybody else would be like, ‘Oh, jeez, he’s spun twice!’ and you were just smiling about it like, ‘Oh well, yeah, I did my best!’
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Yeah! Yeah, I mean, I still put a lot of pressure on myself, the team puts pressure on me and I put pressure on the team – I think it’s good, I think it’s good to push everyone and I never felt that the pressure was affecting my driving.
It was the same at McLaren, I probably put the most pressure on myself – I always want to improve the situation and if I don’t get everything out of the car I’m not happy, I will find out why it’s not happening.
But this year I’m not running out of energy, I can put something behind me and then think clearly, come back still very fresh the next morning and on Sunday morning I’m as fresh as on Friday morning.
I feel the balance is better and that’s probably the biggest reason.
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