Thursday, May 21, 2009

Heikki downplays McLaren's pace

Thursday 21st May 2009

Heikki Kovalainen has downplayed the pace that saw himself and team-mate Lewis Hmailton finish in the top four in Thursday's first practice session in Monaco.

McLaren headed to Monte Carlo for this weekend's race, confident that the twisty, slow track would suit the characteristics of their MP4-24. And that proved to be true when, on Thursday morning, Hamilton and Kovalainen finished third and fourth on the timesheets, half a second behind pace-setter Rubens Barrichello.

But despite their strong early showing, Kovalainen has warned against getting their hopes too high.

"I don't think that we should put too many expectations on any weekend," the Finn told Autosport.

"We know the car is still not quick enough, but potentially it could be a bit better here than it was in Barcelona. We have a few upgrades again for the car, so let's see where we are tomorrow and go from there."

Having said that, though, the McLaren man reckons Thursday morning's results are more proof that McLaren are heading in the right direction with their MP4-24.

"I think we have made quite a massive gain between the last test that we did before the start of the season and now - I think we've gained a big chunk of the lap time," he said.

"So if we can carry on doing that over the next few months obviously it will help us a lot. Obviously at the last race everybody had their upgrades, and we should have upgrades coming regularly. Hopefully more often than the competitors."

Source : Planet F1

No comments: