Q & A with Heikki Kovalainen

Heikki Kovalainen: Well, clearly we are not satisfied with fifth and sixth position. Not myself, not Lewis and not anyone else in the team. But it's incredibly close here, and improving by just a small amount would put you in a very different position.

So we should not give up, and we definitely won't give up. We'll keep fighting. We just don't know about the strategies and how it's going to work tomorrow. We've just got to go flat out and anything is possible. So that's my view at the moment.

Q. Heikki, you seemed to be fast in the first part of the qualifying sessions but towards the end were less competitive. Was that due to grip levels in the last sector?

HK: At the moment I don't have a straight answer to that. It's been a trend I've had here through the winter as well, to be honest. The first sector feels very comfortable, and even if I am trying not to push too much so I can save some of the grip for later in the lap, it still is very competitive.

The second split is there or thereabouts, but it is true that for myself the last sector is the poorest. I think that compared to Lewis, and even compared to the other teams, we are both struggling a little bit on the last sector, and we can't quite keep up enough pace there.

It's difficult to say why that is; it doesn't feel too bad, we just need to try to find out. I don't know if we can do anything about that for tomorrow, but maybe there is something that we can learn.

Q. This seems to be the third weekend in a row where you are struggling with the set-up. Are you beginning to get worried?

HK: No, not worried. I think for myself it has been a very difficult weekend overall. Yesterday I missed a lot of running and it was actually a fantastic job by the team - the mechanics worked until 3:30 in the morning to make sure that everything was spot-on for this morning's sessions, and straight away the car felt back to normal.

I don't think that I lost that much in terms of performance, but when it's this close and everybody know the circuit, because we are running a lot here and everybody knows the set-ups, and the balance of the car is quite confident for everybody, when you don't have that last little edge which I missed yesterday . half a tenth, one tenth, would have been a different story. When it is so close it is easy to lose many positions.

But there is no reason to be worried. Like we showed this year, the car has very good pace - Lewis won in Australia - and we've been strong in various parts of other races as well. I think we just need to nail a weekend without any troubles, and we'll be there again. Of course, the fact is that it's so close that we just need to keep working very hard and keep improving our package all the time.

Q. Are you surprised at Renault's performance?

HK: No. I already saw from the time that I spent in the team that they are a very good group of people, and they are a strong team. Obviously last year was very difficult, but they are working hard to come back and they have clearly made some improvements for their car. Fernando, and to be honest even Nelson, has been fast this week. They've both been on a very good pace. So no, it's no surprise for me.

Like I have said all through the winter, the other teams are going to come stronger, and it is getting very, very tight. It's no surprise. There are so many other good people in other teams, but we have a great team as well.

We have a very strong group of people, and we can fight back. There is no doubt about that. I am not concerned. But the other teams are getting stronger all the time.