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F1: “I’m Not Helping Hamilton!” Says Kovalainen
Written by: Adam Cooper
RACER Magazine   http://www.racer.com/speedtv
07/19/2008 - 02:13 PM
Hockenheim, Germany
 
Kovalainen is still pushing to the limit to try to beat his teammate. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

Heikki Kovalainen says he’s not ready to play a supporting role to Lewis Hamilton’s title challenge.

The Finn is third on the grid in Germany, behind Hamilton and Felipe Massa, and is determined to win rather than just take points away from the Englishman’s rivals.

“I’m not helping him, I’m trying to take the first position away from him!,” he told SPEEDtv.com. “But he will not give it very easy. Tomorrow will be a hard race, but we respect each other, we work for the team, but I’m not supporting anyone – I’m trying to win for myself.”

At Silverstone the pair touched, fortunately without any consequences. Heikki admits the first corner will be crucial once again.

“It’s always quite critical, and ideally you’d like to be at the head of the queue, and not be behind the queue. But it’s still not over after the first corner, you just need to make sure that we don’t get any damage or any incidents or any accidents, and move on from there.”

Kovalainen says that two straight poles for
the team are a true indicator of current form.

“I think we’ve been able to find little by little more pace from the whole package, and it’s starting to work nicely now. Of course I would have preferred to be on pole, and I think it was absolutely possible today to be on pole. But there were a few mistakes on the last few runs, the last couple of laps in qualifying. Sometimes these things happen, and I’m happy to be in third place after all those moments.

“I think it’s clear that we have improved, but it’s still incredibly close. If you look at Q2, when everybody is running low fuel, it’s very, very close between many teams now. We just need to keep pushing more and more, but I’m very happy with the development the team has done. I can feel we are improving. Hopefully we are improving more than the others, and that means we are strong towards the end of the season.”

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