Heikki Kovalainen: “First I want to say thank you to the team for doing a great job and getting the car fixed and ready for most of FP2. I made a mistake on the exit of turn 9 and hit the wall, obviously doing some pretty substantial damage to the car but, thankfully, not to the chassis. As soon as we got it back to the garage the guys started work on rebuilding it so to get that job done and giving me FP2 track time was a very good achievement.
“Before the FP1 off the car had felt good pretty much from the first lap. In FP2 I had the same sort of positive feel from the balance and I think we look ok here – not quite as close as we were in Monaco but certainly close enough to have a good race on Sunday.”
Vitaly Petrov: “I am pleased with how both sessions went today. 64 laps over FP1 and FP2 gives us a very good amount of data to work on tonight and we pretty quickly found a decent balance on both sets of tyres so I think we can keep progressing throughout the weekend. We obviously can’t tell where we really are against the cars ahead as everyone was running different fuel levels and tyre compounds at different times, but I think we look pretty good here. The aim now is to keep up the positive momentum and see what happens in quali and in the race.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader: “Canada is an interesting challenge for us from the engine side. The track evolves quickly over thw eekend but for us cooling and fuel consumption are probably the biggest focus areas, and we need to pay particular attention to the weather as that has a large effect on both cooling and fuel consumption. Both sessions today were dry so I think we have good data to work on from today’s running, despite losing some time on Heikki’s car after his accident in FP1.
“On the cooling side the weather also has a major influence on how we configure the car. The lower speeds in the wet mean the cooling capability of the cars also has to be lowered to compensate so today’s information from the dry runs should give us the right platform to work on for both qualifying and the race. Both drivers are happy with how we have started the weekend, so we go into FP3 and qualifying in a positive frame of mind.”
Mark Smith, Technical Director: “That was a positive Friday for us. Heikki’s accident this morning obviously meant we had to change his runplan for the day but excellent work by the team gave him enough laps on both tyre compounds in FP2 to make sure we minimised the loss of track time today. His times this afternoon were good but there is definitely some more to come. He had a few issues with traffic on the super soft tyres so I think we will see him pushing hard all weekend. Vitaly also had a good day, working through his whole plan and setting good times on both the soft and the super soft tyres. We have some more work to do on his car to help improve his low-speed traction and front grip, but we know what to do with that so I think we will be in good shape tomorrow on both sides of the garage.”
