LONDON — Heikki Kovalainen is frustrated that he didn’t contribute enough to McLaren’s overall points total last season for the team to capture the Formula One constructors’ title along with Lewis Hamilton’s drivers’ championship.
The Finn believes, however, his ability will shine through in 2009.
Kovalainen is convinced that last year’s results — only one Grand Prix victory, three podium finishes, one pole position and a seventh place finish in the drivers’ championship — did not reflect the work he put in on and off the race circuits.
“I think I put perhaps too much expectation on myself, and sometimes I was too hard on myself if I didn’t get the pole position or didn’t win the race,” he said.
“I think looking back afterwards, I think I had some good really races. Even compared to Lewis there were many, many positives even though he managed to score more points and drove very well last year.”
Kovalainen’s overall performance wasn’t helped by three retirements, a crash at the Spanish GP which led to him being flown to hospital with a minor concussion, a stall on the grid at Monaco, a puncture at the Turkish GP and getting penalized five places in qualifying in Malaysia.
“I think first of all I have to finish more races,” said the 27-year-old Finn as McLaren launched its new car before testing it in Portugal on Saturday. “It is going to be the key without any incidents, any problems, to score more points on Sundays is the number one issue.
“And then just to work with the team, I don’t believe there are any magic tricks or any special area that I really need to improve. I hope we can improve every area and the results should be better.”
Kovalainen doesn’t believe that having a world champion in the team will put more pressure on him to support Hamilton who became the youngest ever winner of the drivers’ championship at age 23.
“Certainly the attention is more on Lewis, but I don’t feel even if I had more attention it would be a problem for my work,” said Kovalainen, who is about to start his second season with McLaren.
“It is just good to have a strong teammate, a good teammate. He is a quick driver, he is a very good character, we get on well with each other and together we can push the team forward. That is the most important thing. Whether he is a champion or not a champion, I don’t feel it makes any difference to me.”
Kovalainen is confident that his performances will improve the more he gets to know the McLaren pit team during his second season with them.
“Certainly I know the team better, and how it operates,” he said. “I know the key people from every department better, so hopefully I can give better instructions and better direction for the team, the engineers and the designers, about what I need from the car.”
“This year hopefully we can turn things around and hopefully I can have a stronger year. The most important thing is to keep the focus on driving and focus on performance, and keep them consistently high. Then things will work out.”
Kovalainen says he will also try not be too self-critical.
“I don’t think I have to take all the blame on myself,” he said. “We can work as a team, and in that way I want the year to be more enjoyable and more relaxed. And if I have one session where I don’t think I have maximized everything then I am not going to get stressed about it.
“I think you just have to build the confidence to a level where if you have a bad session you can still be on pole position, still be competitive and still win a race. That is one of the targets I would like to get this year.”
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