McLaren frustrated by Kovalainen penalty

Kovalainen will drop from fifth to 10th on the grid after the stewards felt that he had held up Webber, who was on a quick lap, in Q1.

But Dennis says that the team and driver were simply caught out by bad circumstances - as Kovalainen got caught up close on track to Kazuki Nakajima.

"With Heikki, obviously we get phenomenally frustrated when we try to do everything right," said Dennis. "He had I think Nakajima behind him, they were both trying to stay out of everybody's way, and Nakajima overtook him into the final two corners.

"I think really the pace that they went into that last sector prior to starting their own laps was so slow that it caught everybody out, and really he had nowhere to go."

Dennis said McLaren changed Kovalainen's strategy for Q3 when it became apparent that he would be penalised - so as not to be stuck too far down the field with a light fuel load.

"It's not the way we wanted it to be, but in the end, once it had happened we changed strategy to try to minimise the damage tomorrow, and that clearly put Heikki down the grid," he explained.

"So he did a great job I think, and retrospectively tomorrow when you look at the stops and everything, fuel-corrected he did a great job.

"Overall the performance of the drivers and the cars is not reflected in the grid positions, but tomorrow is the race and there is a long way to go in this season."

Kovalainen himself was keen not to talk about what happened, clearly disappointed by the turn of events.

"I honestly don't want to get into that," he said when asked about the penalty. "I tried to stay out of the other drivers' way when I was on my warming-up lap, and the stewards decided to give me a five-place penalty. I don't want to talk about it any more."