What happened to Heikki?

The contrast between the demeanour of the McLaren and Renault bosses after the Australian GP was quite something. As you can imagine, Ron Dennis was as happy as a kid with a new toy after his boys finished second and third, and even the worryingly fast pace of Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari failed to dampen his enthusiasm. Flavio Briatore, in contrast, looked far from happy.

Flav has never been a touchy-feely kind of guy as far as keeping his drivers happy is concerned, but his attack on Heikki Kovalainen was pretty strong stuff, even by his standards. I didn't hear his comments personally, and much of what we've read has been translated from Italian, but I doubt if it has been embellished too much. His forthright views certainly couldn't have done much to make the Finn feel very comfortable at a time when he needed some support.

So what went wrong for Heikki? Let's take a look at his weekend. Things began with heavy rain that spoiled most of Friday morning, the session when he should have been learning the circuit. Like most of the others, he got in one quick lap in right at the end on dry tyres, albeit on a track that was still damp. He was eighth overall, and half a second quicker than team mate Giancarlo Fisichella. Not a bad start.

The 90-minute afternoon session should have given him time to catch up, but halfway through it the R27 ground to a halt with a fuel pump problem. Crucially, that was before he had a chance to run on the softer option tyre, which most drivers found tricky to handle.

That would have put any driver off his stroke, but for a guy in his first race, on an unfamiliar track, in a car that is clearly not yet where it should be, it was a disaster. In fact he did just 10 laps in that PM session, including ins and outs - and only four of them were proper flying laps. In contrast Kimi Raikkonen and Fisichella did as many as 33.

He still had another hour on Saturday morning, but with the race engine now in and a programme already scheduled, there wasn't much leeway. Just to make things more difficult, the knock-on effects of the fuel pump problem cost him more than half the session.

In the end he completed 13 laps in two runs, of which eight were proper flying laps. Jenson Button topped the session on 21, while Fisichella managed 18, so again Heikki was shortchanged. Nevertheless on his first lap on the softs he was fast enough to take eighth place, just less than 0.5s off Fisichella.

Kovalainen suffers fuel pump problems in Friday practice © XPB/LAT

Just to recap, he went into qualifying having done a total of 43 laps of Albert Park, nearly half of which were in the wet on Friday. Taking in and out laps into account, he had done just 13 proper, uninterrupted dry laps of the track, only five of which were on the soft tyre he was due to use in qualifying. Fisichella, a man with rather more knowledge of Albert Park, had run 65 laps, of which some 34 were dry flying laps, including extensive running on the soft tyres.

Despite that handicap, Heikki sailed through Q1 with a time that was 0.259s off Fisichella's. But switching to the soft tyre for Q2, he was a lot less comfortable - 0.815s from Fisi after his first run. The pressure was now really on as it became evident that he might not make it through, and despite a mistake he improved his own time by four-tenths on his second set. Nevertheless, the only thing that really mattered - the margin to his team mate - grew to 1.020s.

"I don't think he was quite as happy with the car as Fisi was," said technical director Bob Bell. "The car was fundamentally OK, but I don't think he quite liked the feel of the softer tyres as much as Fisi did. Fisi was able to get a little bit more out of them. All credit to him, as soon as he got out of the car after qualifying, he said he didn't do as good a job as he could have done."

Indeed Heikki was the first to admit that he hadn't got the best out of the car, and that was clear when I chatted to him on Sunday morning. To his credit wasn't making excuses, and nor did he place much emphasis on the loss of track time (stating: "In my opinion I did enough laps to learn the track").

But mileage is not just about knowing where to turn left or right, and I think you'll agree that he hardly went into the session as prepared as he could or should have been. And while testing can't really prepare you for the pressures of a real qualifying session, his cause had not been helped by the fact that the team hadn't done a lot of low fuel, new tyre running prior to Australia.

"Maybe we've lost a little bit in respect of qualifying," admitted Pat Symonds. "The only qualifying emphasis he's done at all was one day in Bahrain, when both cars went out and did a qualifying simulation."

Unfortunately, the race didn't give Heikki a chance to redeem himself. He spent the first part stuck behind Takuma Sato (who turned out to be three laps lighter on fuel), and then lost out to pursuer Nico Rosberg when they pitted together on lap 27. Then came the unfortunate spin at Turn One on lap 39 that dropped him behind Ralf Schumacher. That cost him any chance of the top eight result that would have saved his weekend - his best lap was faster than those of the two Toyotas that finished ahead.

Even worse, the spin and another grassy moment added to the general perception that things had not gone right and he was trying too hard. But then anyone can make a mistake. Race winner Kimi Raikkonen and Hamilton also strayed off course at various points. Consider too the veteran Red Bull drivers, one of whom took out another car in an ill-judged kamikaze move, while the other spun in the pit entry. Had a rookie committed either of those errors he might no longer have a job...

Kovalainen spins in the first turn © XPB/LAT

Briatore's post-race mood was probably not helped by the fact that while Fisichella brought home some points, it was all too clear that Renault is some way behind, and this is not going to be a hat-trick season.

"Giancarlo did a reasonable job I suppose," said Alan Permane, the new head of race engineering. "In fact he did quite a good job. He got one extra place, starting sixth and finishing fifth, with Kubica going out. He raced very well. Heikki didn't have a great race. We have to look back, trawl through all the data, and understand what happened. He went off a couple of times, which obviously didn't help.

"He started quite heavy, but in the first stint he was actually going pretty well. He got through quite a few cars at the start, and he was doing quite a good job. Then he lost a place to Rosberg at the pit stop, and after that he was struggling. We put our soft tyres on at the end, and he was struggling a lot on those."

The problem is that your first race means so much in terms of perception. Rosberg's impressive debut in Bahrain last year helped to carry him through problems later in the year, whereas Heikki has no such joker to play now.

As the man who ultimately made the decision to hire the Finn - and had to convince the Renault board that a rookie was good enough to replace Alonso - Briatore has the right to say what he thinks. Whether he should have been so free with his criticism is another matter, because it certainly won't have helped.

In contrast the rest of the team management has remained sympathetic, and fully support their man. Pat Symonds was well aware of how difficult a debut can be. "It's never easy, because you're doing your thing so publicly," he said. "One of the things that's very hard for any sportsman is that you are judged, as the public feel they have a right to judge sportsmen and celebrities. So it's a very public baptism of fire."

Those who know him well are convinced he'll bounce back.

"It didn't quite come together," said engine boss Rob White. "There's no reason to panic, he's strong in the head, he's a quick guy. He'll live to fight another day, he'll live to have better qualifying sessions than we had in Australia. There's nothing really to be negative about. Just a slight sense of missed opportunity, that's all. I think he's mentally strong, and certainly at this stage there's no reason to be worried. He has to plough his own furrow, doesn't he?

Kovalainen crosses the start/finish line © LAT

"There's no question that ever since he arrived in the team as a test driver he's been really up for it. He's got a capacity to work on the car with the guys around the car. As racing has become closer, that's become more and more intense. He's what you see, he really is easy to deal with, easy to work with, and has been good at everything we've asked of him."

Bell added: "Given the fact that he lost a lot of track time, which was down to the team, I think he has done a credible job, he really has. Particularly on his first race weekend, there's a lot to do with any driver's mental approach, and if you take a setback like that, it knocks your momentum. And it does affect you, there's no doubt about it. He was really straight about it, and he'll put it behind him and move on."

Bell is convinced that Heikki has the ability to do just that and added: "I think the best example of that was in Bahrain, when he had his accident. We managed to get the car back together again for him to go out, and as soon as he got in it again he was right on the pace."

It's perhaps unfortunate that Heikki has had to wait through two free weekends to get another chance. He has at least had the opportunity to test this week in Malaysia, and that means he can approach the weekend in a complete different way, come rain or shine. He's also tested at Bahrain, and of course can drive round the fourth venue in Barcelona blindfold, so it should be a different story from now on.

The bottom line is that the switch to Bridgestone and the loss of Alonso has cost Renault the momentum that carried the team to those two world championships. Getting Heikki back on track is one thing, making the car quicker quite another.

"It's very difficult to say," said Permane of the team's pace. "We're lacking a little bit everywhere, compared to the other three teams, for sure. There's no secret formula or magic to it, it's just hard work, put more downforce on the car, get the drivers in tune with it, and heads down and work hard. There's stuff coming all the time, almost every race we'll have new parts, more downforce. The factory will keep churning more performance out."