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Q & A with Heikki Kovalainen

Q. Pole for tomorrow after being fastest this morning in free practice - how do you feel?

Heikki Kovalainen: I'm very happy. I felt very comfortable this morning, and the car felt pretty good - I think with the low downforce settings we have here the car has been working really well over the whole weekend so far, and I was certainly looking for pole position today.

Q. You've had a few problems with qualifying of late - does this mean you've found the solution to that problem?

Kovalainen: Yes, I think we've found that a little bit, but obviously I think that the low downforce settings seem to give our car a better balance, and it uses the tyres better in low downforce - I think that's the key here. But I think we've made an improvement as well, but Arden have always been good around here.

Q. You and Nico were quite close on the timesheets, but there was a long gap behind you - why do you think that is?

Kovalainen: I don't know - I'm very surprised, and I was expecting it to be a lot, lot closer. I've seen the gap before when Nico was a second or a second and a half ahead of me, and I've been scratching my head and wondering what I have to do, and now it's the other way around because we are ahead. Which is strange - I don't think we've done anything special, and suddenly from qualifying eleventh in Turkey we are now on pole here. Certainly it's a surprise, but I'm not complaining - as long as the gap stays like that tomorrow, it's fine!

Q. It was quite hot today - do you think that made any difference?

Kovalainen: I think maybe a little bit - obviously we changed the car from this morning to this afternoon, as we predicted what was going to happen and it changed the balance a little bit - I wonder if the other teams didn't change and that affected them a bit and they weren't as good? Otherwise it's difficult to see why.

Q. Tomorrow morning you are on pole, Nico is right next to you - what do you see happening?

Kovalainen: I think we're going to have a good race, and I've never had any problems racing with Nico. I think you'll see a good fight, and hopefully I'll come out of it first, although I'm sure he's thinking the same. We're just going concentrate on the strategy and on the car, to get it right and then just push and see where we are.

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