Vitaly Petrov positive despite early retirement

Caterham’s Vitaly Petrov has remained confident despite failing to start Sunday’s British Grand Prix after an engine related issue struck his car as the Russian driver made his way to the grid. This meant only Heikki Kovalainen started the race for Caterham, however both Petrov and the Caterham team remain confident despite the slightly disappointing result.

The Hingham-based outfit introduced many new upgrades to their car for this weekend’s British Grand Prix, and were optimistic with possibly progressing through to Q2 in qualifying. However, after yesterday’s washout of a qualifying session, Caterham were still eliminated after Q1 along with Jenson Button and the usual suspects of the two Marussias and HRTs.

With the race running incident free and dry, Kovalainen crossed the line to finish 17th in what he described as an uneventful British Grand Prix. The Finn started the British Grand Prix from pole back in 2008, which still remains his one and only pole in his Formula 1 career.

Vitaly Petrov would have started the race in 18th position, but after a frustrating engine failure prior to the race, he instead became a spectator. Naturally the Russian driver would have preferred to have started the race, and joined his team-mate jostling for position on the opening lap. Amidst understandable frustration, Petrov has hailed the British Grand Prix as a positive weekend for himself and Caterham.

“I am obviously disappointed to have had my race end before I had even reached the grid.” Explained Vitaly Petrov, “Despite the issue today this has been a positive weekend. The car has worked well in each session and I’ve been really pleased with how the engineers and mechanics have helped us keep making steps forward with the setup. Even though we had very limited running with the updates it was immediately clear that we have put more downforce on the car and with more time on track we will be able to work on fine-tuning the setups that will let us get the most out of the car at the next race.”

Vitaly Petrov has scored points in every German Grand Prix he has contested in his relatively short Formula 1 career, and would undeniably be over the moon if he scored points for Caterham in two weeks time. However, with the 2012 season exceedingly competitive up and down the grid, any points scored by Caterham would be extremely hard earned.

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