Heikki Kovalainen: We underperformed today

Heikki Kovalainen has been blunt with regards to Caterham’s uncompetitive qualifying performance for the United States Grand Prix, simply stating that the team underperformed during the all-important qualifying session. The Leafield-based outfit were out-qualified by the Marussia duo of Timo Glock and Charles Pic.

After the team elected to not run a Friday driver during yesterday’s two opening practice sessions to allow both Heikki Kovalainen and Vitaly Petrov enough time to learn the new venue, the team are understandably frustrated after being outshone during qualifying by the KERS-less Marussia outfit. The team are currently ahead of Caterham in the Constructors’ Championship, something which could cost Caterham millions should they be unable to leapfrog the Anglo-Russian outfit.

“We underperformed today, it’s really that simple.” Explained a disheartened Heikki Kovalainen, “We went with a plan that didn’t work and unfortunately both Vitaly and I weren’t able to get enough heat into the tyres to get the best out of them, or manage the traffic well enough to get a clean lap in. Tomorrow’s another day so now we need to regroup and have a better performance in the race than we did today.”

Heikki Kovalainen is adamant both he and team-mate Vitaly Petrov will be able to beat the Marussia duo during tomorrow’s 56-lap United States Grand Prix. However, with neither Marussia nor Caterham likely to score points this weekend, the outfit will require an 11th place finish to thwart Glock’s 12th place finish at the Singapore Grand Prix back in September.

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