“And I totally believe I go into the new season with every chance of fighting for the world championship. I've learned so much from last year, I think I've developed both as a person and as a driver and I know that if the car is good then I'll have every chance of fighting for wins. And if that happens, I hope it will lead me towards fighting for the title,” said Kovalainen, ahead of the off-season's last group test at Barcelona this week.
After moving to McLaren from Renault F1, Kovalainen scored his first pole position and win in Formula 1 last year. His McLaren powered to 1st place in the qualifying session of the British Grand Prix, after which it arrived first at the Hungarian Grand Prix chequered flag. However, his lack of consistency throughout the year caused him to only finish 7th overall in the point standings.
After a year in which he focused more on getting along with his new team and adapting to the McLaren's “way of life”, Kova is now expecting (and also expected, we might add) to help McLaren win a constructors' title of their own, following some 11 years of absence.
“Maybe it took longer than I anticipated to learn about the team and how to use the people in the team to help me. I also put a little bit too much pressure on myself when things didn't quite go my way, and I've learned not to worry too much about that now. I definitely feel like I've really learned more about this team and how we can work together to get better results. It's something that Lewis already knew very well and I can see how that helped him last year. Now I feel much better prepared than I did last year,” added the Finnish driver.
Kova will take part in the last testing session of the off-season this week, at Barcelona, being scheduled to test the hopefully-improved MP4-24 during two of the 4 days on the Circuit de Catalunya.
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