Caterham’s Heikki Kovalainen has described his qualifying lap as ‘pretty much the perfect lap’, even though the Finn failed to progress through to Q2. After the only dry session of the qualifying hour, Kovalainen ended Q1 in 19th position only +1.927 seconds off the fastest time set by Kimi Raikkonen prior to the rain arriving.
Since Caterham introduced new upgrades to their car at the British Grand Prix, the team have been striving to unlock the potential of the CT01. Although other members of the team are not necessarily satisfied with how qualifying turned out, Kovalainen is safe in the knowledge that he squeezed every ounce of pace out of his car. Kovalainen’s team-mate Vitaly Petrov qualified one place behind the Finn, however Petrov was just under a second off Kovalainen’s pace.
“For where we are right now that was pretty much the perfect lap.” Enthused Heikki Kovalainen. “I didn’t make any mistakes, nailed every apex and had a clean lap, so I’m pleased with what I got out of the car today. Closing the gap to the cars ahead is obviously our target and I think we are still finding out how to unlock the real potential of the upgrade package we first ran in Silverstone.”
Caterham have yet to score their first World Championship points in Formula 1, after making their debut back in 2010 when they were known as Lotus. They have undeniably shined the most out of the three ‘new’ teams on the grid, and it’s without a doubt only a matter of time before Caterham finally score those first elusive points in Formula 1.
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