Caterham show good pace albeit steering issues

Although both Caterham’s failed to finish this weekends Australian Grand Prix, they can move on to Malaysia content with the knowledge that their cars were completing competitive lap times throughout the race. Both Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov retired due to steering issues during Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.

As the two cars’ dodged various incidents on the opening lap, Kovalainen lost the use of his KERs device as well as experiencing DRS issues early on. Regardless of this, the Finn continued setting competitive lap times which brought smiles to the Caterham mechanics.

“I lost DRS until about lap six, and had to switch off KERS right at the start, so the sort of times we were doing were clearly competitive.” Explained Kovalainen, the Finn retiring on lap 38, “Both stops went well but then I felt the car starting to pull left under braking so we brought the car in to take a look and it seems like a front left suspension problem was causing the handling imbalance I’d felt for a few laps before we had to retire.”

In the opening stages of the race, the Caterham of Heikki Kovalainen was setting lap times roughly 4.5 seconds off Button’s pace, which he got down to 2.1 by lap 8. This was completed whilst the Finn was suffering from DRS and KERs issues, benefits which can offer a driver several tenths a lap when working.

The Malaysian owned team will be hoping they can continue this pace throughout next weekends Malaysian Grand Prix, and reach the checkered flag for the first time in 2012.

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