F1 » Kovalainen seeks equal chance in '09

Good luck to him with that, I can''t see him getting his equal chance

at last, kovi has admitted what a lot of posters had been saying. his "lack of speed" was due to being heavy, with lulu being favoured as number one. i only hope that kovi WILL be given equal status next year, but past history leads one to doubt that he will.

Richard,no doubt this was the information you have been waiting for all season,another chance for you to slag off Hamilton as being unworthy of this years title!What Heikki has not said is why he failed to do better in the races where he was ahead of Hamilton,Silverstone he says he was lighter but could not fend off Lewis and Monza where he completely blew his chances off another win and got nowhere near to Vettel.The question is why would Mclaren choose to do this to their second driver?There seems no reason I can see although I am sure you will come up with yet another of your theories!I think Heikki is making excuses for what everyone would agree was a pretty average drive at most races!

Much less than average I would say. There were 20 permanent drivers this year and I would rank him among the bottom 5. If you'd count Sato and Davidson in, I would vote both ahead of Kovalainen, too.

The only driver who was clearly worse was Piquet (it's an outrage he's retained at Renault, but I guess with the money they spend on Alonso, Renault couldn't afford to put a better driver in, but even then they should have gone with Di Grassi or another young talent). Other drivers in the same leaugue as Heikki were Coulthard and Button, who were also both less than impressive.

at last rich ard has found the golden article. Proof that Hekki was second fiddle. Well guess what? Hekki is second fiddle and will continue to play that role. Same as Piquet and others. What do you not get about Hamilton and Alonso and others being far better drivers than their team mate. He is only speaking out now as this is his last year with McL. If he doesn't provide better feed back and support to the team(lewis) then he might even be let go early. He drove poorly in most GP's and was not the team mate that Lewis needed. And enough about fair play. Their is NO fair play in F1. Ask Rubens or read his book.

@ Rob. You are spot on. F1 is only fair when nothing is on the line. A team has to favour one driver if he's got the better chance of the WDC. If Mclaren had got it right last year either FA or LH would have been WDC but they fought each other and got nothing

It still doesn't explain why he couldn't match Lewis' lap times at most tracks. Even if he did start heavy at some point he would have a low level of fuel to go for a faster/ similar lap time than Lewis. Would be interesting to see the stats on fastest laps at each circuit for the two drivers, that would be a truer indication of ultimate pace. Let's be honest Heikki wasn't consistently fast anyway whereas Lewis and others on the track were able to be so.
Knew there would be a comment from Richard on this, just can't wait to back up his constant negative comments about Lewis over the whole season is all. Most regulars on here know that anyway and most of us ignore him most of the time lol

Kova was just looking for excuses to justify his stumbles.why should it always be on pole to win? LH most of the times comes charging through the field from the back ,when he stumbles on his poles .Kova never does that. forget LH .why can't he fight the likes of Kubica ,Alnoso in his Renault ,Why could he beat Vettel at Monza. Dear Kova take a good rest watching reruns on how LH does it all when he falls back .watch Monza as an example of never giving up .the kid (LH) never gives up .watch Raikonen's old reruns ,too.stop looking for excuses and learn more to get better.

cubik rube,thanks for the personal commendation. however, you got it wrong. i was NOT being negative about lulu, but being positive about kovi. there has been much debate about team orders and No 1 in mclaren, but very many do not accept that equality exists. with DC, montoya,prost,alonso etc all saying this year, that there were favourites. i posted that now kovi is saying the same thing. i rate kovi and regret that he has not been given a chance to prove his worth. it is easier to win from pole than from third row of grid. so give the guy a chance.

Mac supporters can't have it both ways! Kovi is either telling the truth about this, or RD and the team made another silly error of judgement by picking a useless driver for the second seat. When will they learn???

Maybe he was the worst option they had after the other top drivers turned down the drive?