Win changes nothing for Kovalainen

The Finn, who has been overshadowed by McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton for much of the summer, inherited his win after Felipe Massa and the Briton both hit problems.

And while Kovalainen is excited to have made the breakthrough, he accepts there is room for more improvement.

"The win doesn't change too much, really: I still believe I am improving and learning more about the team and the car at each race," he said. "My aim for the last part of the season is to win more races and to perform regularly at the front.

"It's something I was able to do from time to time in the first half of the year, but I now feel more confident that I can be a consistent challenger in the remaining races, and I'm really looking forward to that."

Kovalainen says he expects the upcoming European Grand Prix at Valencia to be a spectacle for the fans and predicts the Spanish city track will be a quick one.

"It looks pretty fast, to be honest," he said. "You get used to street circuits being quite slow, with lots of slow- to medium-speed corners and very short straights, but this is almost the opposite. There are a lot of fast kinks and esses, a couple of decent straights and lots of high-speed stuff.

"It's too early to say yet whether there will be opportunities to overtake around here, but there are a couple of hairpins where it might be possible."