Race report

Average race for Caterham at Monza

Heikki Kovalainen, Caterham

Photo by: xpb.cc

Heikki Kovalainen (car 20, chassis CT01-#03 - Finished: 14th - Fastest lap: 1.29.399 (lap 46): "Overall the race was OK and better than we had last weekend but for me it was a pretty hard afternoon, not too bad but maybe a bit average. I didn't really have the performance I had on the longer runs on Friday and the grip level felt lower so I couldn't really attack and that held me up a bit on each set of tyres.

"Now we have a couple of weeks to work through everything we've learnt in Italy and from Spa and make sure we go to Singapore with a clear idea of where we lost time in Belgium and what we can do to keep improving in the rest of the season. Everyone's determined to get back to where we should be and we'll see what we've learnt when we get back on track in two weeks time."

Vitaly Petrov: (car 21, chassis CT01-#02 - Finished: 15th - Fastest lap: 1.29.066 (lap 46): "My car felt fantastic all afternoon so thanks to the team for giving me a car I could push my teammate with right up to the last lap. The pitstops were good and the mechanics and engineers did a great job to keep me in the hunt with Heikki.

With a few laps left Heikki and I were right up behind Fernando but Heikki was close enough to the Ferrari to use his DRS, otherwise maybe I'd have been able to pass. Anyway, we've definitely improved since Spa and we can build on this for Singapore and the rest of the season.

"It was my birthday yesterday and I had a quiet dinner with some friends. Now I can go out and celebrate a bit more and that'll be a good way to finish the European races this year - maybe I should make sure I have dinner with them before every race so I can have as good a Sunday as this for the rest of the year!"

Source: Caterham F1 Team