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Hungary GP: Post Race press conference

NEWS STORY
03/08/2008

Heikki, it has been a long road but your first win in Formula One. Describe your feelings as you crossed the line.
Heikki Kovalainen: Yeah, of course I was very happy. Like you mentioned there have been various incidents this year and we have been in the position after Saturday quite a few times to fight for the victory, but always something has gone wrong and it hasn't functioned perfectly. Today obviously I knew Massa and Lewis were both very fast at the beginning of the race but half way through the race I felt it was starting to work for me a little bit better and then at the end I just tried to put pressure on Massa and hoped something would happen and obviously it looked like he had a mechanical failure, so it all worked fine for me today and I am very, very happy about it. All the hard work that the whole team has put in the last few months, through difficult times, we just kept pushing and it is very respectable and I am very, very glad to score my first victory.

The car looked particularly good in the last stint on the softer tyres. How quick was the car relative to Felipe do you think?
HK: It is difficult to say what he was doing. I was catching him quite a big chunk every lap and the target was to try and put pressure on him and take all the power from his engine and everything I could do to put pressure on him. Like you said, my car felt particularly good on the last stint. The first two stints I was a little bit cautious. Earlier this year I have had some troubles with the tyre degradation and I was worried if I crossed that edge again I might start to struggle. I just kept my own pace and then in the last stint it all worked fine for me.

In the last few laps you knew you were leading and the Finnish anthem was played for you this time on the podium.
HK: It is fantastic. It is a great moment. Of course it is a moment I have been targeting for many, many years now since I started to get an idea about the possibility of becoming an F1 driver. I started to work hard and improve my fitness. I have spent a lot of time to achieve this goal, so to finally achieve it, is very pleasing. Hopefully this is the first of many. At the moment we just need to keep the concentration, have a little break and try to maximise this break and then go to the next round and try to repeat it.

Timo, two weeks ago you were leaving the circuit on a stretcher and here you are celebrating your first ever podium finish in Formula One.
Timo Glock: It is just unbelievable. I couldn't believe it when I saw Felipe's engine going and I knew that I was P2. I got the pressure from Kimi and with the soft tyres at the end I was struggling quite a lot but we knew that on Friday that the soft tyres would be difficult. But in the end it is just unbelievable. After the race in Hockenheim, where we had a good race pace and the big crash, now we have come to Budapest and just kept the speed there and just had a really good car from Friday onwards. We never really made a big change on the car and it was just perfect until the last stint with soft tyres which was a bit tricky but it's unbelievable. I am in my first year with just half of the season over and I am on the podium. It is just a perfect weekend.

And a great start to get past Robert Kubica. Talk us through that.
TG: I mean I had to improve myself a little bit in terms of the start as my reaction time was not perfect in the first couple of races. I just improved myself on it. I think the start time was really, really good and I could out-accelerate Robert and I had a good first corner. The last stint when I saw I was nine seconds in front of Kimi I had a reasonable pace but they told me he was five-tenths quicker per lap. I just tried to push more and more and I just destroyed the tyre every time, so I had to really focus on the tyres and just keep it easy, keep it cool and not be under too much pressure from Kimi.

Kimi did back off quite a bit in the last couple of laps. Did you think he was going to catch you and if so, would he have been able to pass you?
TG: I knew from last year in GP2 when I was stuck in the middle of the field here, I had a really fast car but I couldn't get past anybody, and in F1 it is just more difficult. When he was close to me I could see in the mirror that for two laps he couldn't catch up more, so I thought ‘okay, no mistakes and keep it on the track and that's it'.

Kimi, for most of the race you were trapped behind Alonso. But it all came alive for you in the last stint.
Kimi Raikkonen: Yeah, I think we could have managed to do the race a little bit better but we were stuck behind Alonso all the way to the second stop. Then on the in-lap I was eight-tenths faster on my own but it was a bit late at that point. But at least we had a good car and we got in front of him and I was able to catch Timo but we needed to back off in the end. We were a bit lucky with all of the other people going all over the place and ended up with most points of the first three guys in the championship. I mean we have the speed in the race but if I can't get the qualifying right we are going to end up every race in the same situation like here and in the last race, so we need to sort it out. If we can be in the front, then we can fight for wins but in this position when we are just following people, then we cannot use the speed. The guys did a good job but we just need to fix a few problems and for sure we can be back in the hunt for wins.

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