News: The long and winding yellow brick road
25 | June | 2010
The long and winding yellow brick road
Heikki's race against the clock did not actually start on Friday morning during the 1st practice for the Grand Prix in Valencia, but on Thursday afternoon when he was hit with the problems with his flight from Geneva to Valencia. Due to the strikes in France Heikki’s flight was not able to fly through the French airspace, and since Heikki unfortunately is not in possession of the magic shoes which transfer one to any destination, he had to go by car – 1200km!
Some reports say he arrived at 5am Friday morning, and we hope that happened without speeding and his drivers licence still valid. “I did arrive late today because of the French strikes - we had to drive down from Geneva and arrived early this morning. But I feel fine - it’s just one night with a little less sleep than usual, so it’s no big deal. My physio Petri and I shared the driving, so I feel absolutely fine.“ After a bit of power napping Kovy switched from his street car to the Lotus and made strong start in the 1st practice, although eventually he had to settle for the almost customary P19.
“I feel really good. It’s been an excellent Friday. We’ve made really good progress with the car, and every set up change we made seemed to be pushing us in the right direction, and in the end the tyres seemed to be working well over the long run. The track itself is good, it’s nice – a semi street circuit, but with a little more room than Monaco! It’s smooth, with quite a good grip level and all in all it’s quite good fun.“
Kovy did not manage to keep up with the Toro Rosso drivers which proved again that there is still a long way to go in the car development, but Heikki’s aim still is to catch up and stay with the Toro Rosso. Despite the positive feedback from the practice sessions all drivers again experienced graining issues, yet the team is optimisitc that there will not be as many problems with it as it was in Canada. “For Qualifying tomorrow, we’re going to try to push it to the maximum. Our aim is to get closer to the back of the established teams as much as we possibly can so I’m always pushing, always to the maximum, and let’s see where we are tomorrow afternoon!”
“On the race itself: You can hit the kerbs harder, and find a better balance between the straight-line speed and the grip in the corners, but this makes finding the right downforce level crucial. It’s always hot there, and getting the best out of the tyres will be important – we have the super-soft tyres there so we’ll work on getting the best out of them on Friday and Saturday. I think we’ll put on a good show, and give Clive Chapman and his family, and all the Lotus fans something to cheer for!“
Even though Kovy must have been exhaused after the long night and both practice sessions, the Finn had time to explain a bit about his travel-problems to Juha Päätalo and motorsport-magazin.com. He actually had a flight booked, but since the French flight controllers went on strike at 7am and his pilots had to follow the rules, so the plane lost it's position in the waiting queue. „We had a position in the queue, but the pilots had to take the six hours rest and the charter company couldn't provide other pilots, so they moved us to 9pm and then again to 3am Friday morning, but if this would have not worked out again, I would have missed the opening day in Valencia,“ explained the Finn.
He was not the only one though, and as he continued to describe his adventures he mentioned that on several 'pit stops' Kovy, his physio Petri and girlfriend Catherine met some familiar faces who had to travel by car just as they did. One important thing however was not forgotten back at home and apparently Heikki is looking forward the the travel homewards: “I packed my golf clubs, if I want I can stop at any course on the way home. Lets see how long this will take then...“
Being a Finn from the northern parts of Suomi Heikki joked about how easy it is to drive through the night and be sleep deprieved when you come from such part of the world: “I'm from North-Finland, 1000km is nothing there, you sometimes drive that just to go shopping. In addition I drove for a Swedish kart team, with them we cruised Europe with a truck. “
(c) Jule Krause
