Formula One news

Mixed result at Renault

The Renault team finished sixth and thirteenth in Saturday's qualifying session. While Giancarlo Fisichella showed a good performance his team-mate and rookie Heikki Kovalainen struggled a bit in qualifying and was unable to make it into the final qualifying round.

Giancarlo Fisichella commented after his sixth position in qualifying: "As always, it was a tough qualifying session, but I feel we didn't achieve the maximum this afternoon. My position is pretty much as expected, behind McLaren and Ferrari, but I think I could have gained a place or two without traffic on my final timed lap, which slowed me down in the last three corners in particular. We had expected qualifying to be tough because we know the car's speed on a single lap is not as competitive as the long runs at the moment. Now, we need to wait and see what the race pace is like. We were competitive this morning and yesterday afternoon, so hopefully I can make up some ground at the start - and then fight for the podium."

Heikki Kovalainen expected to have done better but will have to start from 13th. The Finn commented after qualifying this afternoon: "The car was fine and the balance was good, but I just wasn't able to get the maximum from it on a single lap. I lost track time yesterday and this morning, and my times were a little bit off in every sector. Obviously, this performance is not good enough, but there is no point dwelling on it now. Starting from P13 is not ideal for my first Grand Prix, and I will need to race aggressively to get a points finish. That will be my target for tomorrow."

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