Briatore very critical of Kovalainen

The Finn rookie endured a difficult race after qualifying down in 13th position, going on to finish in 10th after a spin and a couple of errors.

Briatore labelled Kovalainen's debut as "horrible".

"Kovalainen had a horrible race," Briatore told RAI after the race. "You need to be realistic: he did almost everything wrong.

"Of course he's a rookie but so is Hamilton so in these two weeks before the next race he needs to change his attitude and try to do better, because he has the capability to do it.

"Nothing went right today: pitstops, everything else. Not good."

Fellow rookie Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a dream start to his Grand Prix career after leading the race for four laps and finishing in third place.

Renault left the race with four points after Giancarlo Fisichella came home in fifth position, and Briatore was pleased with the Italian's performance.

"The first part of Fisichella's race was great," he added. "Let's not forget we need to work harder than the others, because we are behind, so he didn't have a great car. In the second stint, with all the backmarkers he lost a lot of time.

"In the third stint, on soft tyres, he kept Massa behind. He got points, and there was nothing more he could do, neither against McLaren nor against Ferrari, so it looks right."

Briatore said Renault, world champions for the past two seasons, have lost out due to the switch to Bridgestone tyres, but he is hopeful the French squad can recover some ground in the next races.

"Renault lacks three tenths [compared to Ferrari and McLaren]. We had a balanced car on Michelin, so to switch to Bridgestone we had a disadvantage, while McLaren had a different design so they had an advantage.

"We hope to recover by Bahrain, when we'll get the new aerodynamic parts.

"Ferrari have shown to be dominant from the start, but let's not forget the season is long. Last year we were ahead by 30 points, then we started losing ground," added Briatore after Kimi Raikkonen won the race for Ferrari.

"We need to work harder. We know McLaren are still ahead of us, and BMW are at about the same level, but Ferrari are surely ahead of everyone.

"We haven't finished development, because when we fitted Bridgestones in the wind tunnel we lost 7%, so we've recovered some of it. When we did the first test with McLaren on track, they had three tenths over us already.

"It looks like a good championship. Ferrari did everything right today, and so did Raikkonen. Shame that Hamilton didn't end up second, because he had a great race too. Both Raikkonen and Hamilton had fantastic races."