Girlracer exclusive, Heikki Kovalainen interview

When I arrive at the Lotus hospitality suite, Heikki Kovalainen is in a meeting with his engineers.

The short wait gives me time to look around, sitting in the late afternoon Montreal sunshine with the best cup of coffee I've had at a race weekend.

The hospitality suite is done out in the Lotus team colours, as expected. What was unexpected was that the attention to detail would extend to the flowers on the table and the fruit decorating the coffee bar (lemons and limes, since you ask).

The engineering debrief over, it's time for my interview to begin. But a young fan looking for autographs catches the Finnish driver's attention, and he spends a few minutes posing and chatting before heading over to me with an apology, a smile, and a firm handshake. All the F1 drivers I've met thus far have been unfailingly polite, and Heikki Kovalainen is no exception.

Friday's practice sessions were a mixed bag for Lotus, but not for Kovalainen, who was fastest of the new teams in both sessions, one second slower than the Toro Rosso of Jaime Alguersuari in the morning, and seven-tenths behind in the afternoon.

GR: You've done really well in both of today's practice sessions, the fastest of the new teams and very close to Toro Rosso. Is it development on the car or your own skill that's got you this far?

HK: I think it's teamwork. I mean, I'm quite confident in my own skill, I'm not concerned about that. It's just a matter of putting everything together, and today on my side of the garage we managed to improve the balance, to improve the car every run. We pretty much completed the plan that we had, and it's just unfortunate that Jarno [Trulli] had pretty disastrous sessions, with reliability problems again. For me, it's the teamwork – it worked well for me today.

GR: And are you feeling confident in the car for the rest of the weekend? You've had some reliability issues recently.

HK: Like Jarno's car showed today it's still a big issue for us; it's something that we need to stay on top of. It's just new, small problems coming all the time. We're still in this sort of cycle where we're having these problems, and once we pass this cycle then the car will be reliable. We're not there yet, so it's always a concern, but there's nothing I can do about it. My mechanics, my side of the garage is doing the maximum to make sure everything works. It could happen to me tomorrow, but you know – fingers crossed.

GR: Fingers crossed. Are you excited about next year? You have a really good team of engineers, designers, and people coming across.

HK: Yes. The team is getting stronger – almost every week there are new people joining the team. We've got a good designing team, and the aero team [is] start[ing] to be in place. And the facility in the UK – we can design our car there, we can keep designing updates. Yes, it's falling into place and of course I'm very excited about it.

Being part of this programme since the beginning is very good, and I feel I have a very strong relationship with the team. I can give them good feedback – where to go with the design, where to push the car.

GR: How does it feel to be building Lotus' second legacy? You've got an odd old team/new team crossover right now.

HK: It feels good, it feels good. Obviously the old Lotus – if you like – has a very strong history, one of the most successful teams in the paddock. But that doesn't help us now. We have to start from zero, and we started from the back, behind the established teams.

But I think everyone is very excited about Lotus, and I think we've earned a lot of respect in the paddock. People take us as a serious team. If you look at us, we look professional, we run the team professionally, and we have all of the ingredients to become a good team. It will take time, it will take a lot of disappointments – like today in Jarno's car – a lot of problems that are frustrating, but we just have to get through this period.

We will have more disappointing weekends even this year. The car will probably break down, and we will make some mistakes, but it is part of learning. We have to go through that. Once we pass that, then we can start collecting the results.

GR: You have wonderful fan support. Does that help you at the races, knowing that you're a favourite?

HK: Yeah, absolutely. It's great to see a lot of fans, and I almost feel like this year the fanbase has grown again, which is fantastic to see. At every race weekend there's a lot of people already at the airport waiting for me, asking for autographs and following me. It's fantastic – it's great to see that myself and Lotus have created some interest.

GR: It must be pretty crazy though.

HK: Yeah, it's good. There's nothing negative about it. Montreal is one of the good places – there are a lot of enthusiastic Formula 1 fans generally here, Formula 1 is big. Already today in the grandstands we had a lot of people compared to some other weekends when there's no one on Fridays. It's good to be here.

GR: You were P4 for Renault in 2007 here. Where do you expect to finish this weekend? Do you see yourself in the points?

HK: I think it's difficult, but here anything can happen. 2007 was a good example – I started on the back of the grid and finished fourth. I had a difficult Friday, difficult Saturday, and then on Sunday everything worked out perfectly for me.

There are safety cars, possible rain, and the tyres seem to be fragile here this weekend. People seem to have trouble, so anything could happen, and it can work out very nicely for you. You've got to be flexible and open, ready for the opportunity if it happens.

GR: Have you had any time to work on your golf since you got here, or has it been too wet?

HK: No, I've played two rounds already.

GR: So you found a course.

HK: I found a golf course here and I played with some local people. I just joined a group and played with my trainer. On two days I had two different people there; it was fantastic.

GR: And did they know who you were? That they were playing with an F1 star?

HK: I don't think they knew. They had no idea about motorsport, and we didn't talk about motor racing. We talked about golf, and generally about life. It was great.

GR: Like a holiday!

HK: It was fantastic for me, really good. They were really good players, gentlemen – I really enjoyed playing with them, and it was fun.

GR: One final silly question for you. What's the worst in-flight movie you've seen so far this season?

HK: Worst in-flight movie? Hmm.

GR: You spend so much time on planes...

HK: Yeah. On the way here I saw John Travolta in From Paris with Love, which was fantastic. But the worst? I started watching some comedy on the way here, can't remember the name of it. It was supposed to be funny – there were different couples, it was called Valentine's Day.

GR: Oh, that was on my plane.

HK: I found that boring. I didn't finish it – I didn't actually find it funny, and I didn't know what the story was. Was it following people, or was there something happening? I switched it off.

GR: Just not worth it?

HK: It wasn't working for me, no.

GR: Thanks for giving me your time – here's hoping your race weekend works out better than Valentine's Day.

HK: Let's hope so. Kate Walker Girlracer Magazine

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