McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa is confident that his team will be back on something approaching front-running form at his home grand prix this weekend, after two races in Malaysia and Bahrain where
Ferrari and
BMW Sauber stole the psychological advantage.
Addressing the media ahead of the Barcelona round of the
Formula One world championship, de la Rosa confirmed that all at McLaren were determined to help
Lewis Hamilton and, to a lesser extent given his results so far,
Heikki Kovalainen get closer to the pacesetters. Hamilton's performances, in particular, has been the subject of much discussion, but de la Rosa insists that the Briton just needs to carry on doing what he had been doing.
"A blip? What do you mean?" he said, questioning a reporter's choice of words to describe Hamilton's Bahrain outing, "A blip could mean also to go up, so we hope that the blip comes here.
"Yes, [Lewis] had a bad weekend, but all we can do from the team's point of view is to make sure that we make it as simple as possible for him not to make any mistakes. That's what we have been focusing on for the past few weeks, to make sure that this won't happen again. Not that he has to change anything but, from our point of view, we [must] make sure that is simpler for him to activate everything he has to from the cockpit."
de la Rosa denied that his role at Woking included giving advice to his fellow drivers, but he admitted that he would try all that he could to help Hamilton and Kovalainen get back on the pace.
"That's not a part which is included in my contract but, obviously, I am just trying to be helpful for everyone," he explained, "I am just trying to listen as much as I can and know what the biggest problems are.
