Heikki Kovalainen has been having a relatively poor 2009 season with McLaren and is largely failing to meet his own expectations. The car might be a lemon but he has made a number of race-ending mistakes and is a fair way off Lewis Hamilton’s pace. With only 4 points to his name thus far, there is some suggestion that Martin Whitmarsh will be looking at other drivers with his team’s future in mind.
Whilst Kovalainen is not responsible for all of his current woes, he has not matched Lewis Hamilton’s ability to wring every ounce of speed from the mediocre MP4-24.
It is a tall order to expect Heikki to be as quick as the reigning World Champion, but he is regularly up to half a second behind Hamilton’s laptimes. That sort of margin is huge in modern Formula One and can be the difference between Q1 and Q3.
Kovalainen is a great driver but he might be running out of time to realise his true potential at McLaren.
Although Heikki didn’t set the world alight in 2008 his performances against Lewis at the start of the season were very competitive. It is a shame that he hasn’t been able to keep up that sort of momentum because the balance in the team has now swung firmly in Hamilton’s direction.
At the start of last year Kovalainen always qualified with a heavier car than his teammate and was often ahead of Lewis on fuel corrected times.
Unfortunately, a series of incidents beyond his control prevented Heikki from building a title challenge in the same way that Hamilton did. In the first eight races he suffered two qualifying penalties, two mechanical failures, a puncture, and a strategy ruined by the Safety Car.
Those setbacks meant that Kovalainen didn’t get the better results at McLaren and Hamilton used every opportunity he was given to become the team’s undisputed number one driver.
Their status within McLaren was effectively cemented after last year’s British Grand Prix.
The Finn claimed a brilliant pole position at Silverstone twelve months ago, but failed to back up his stunning Saturday performance during the race. He was overtaken by Hamilton at the start and then spun twice on his way down to fifth. To make matters worse, he finished a lap behind his teammate who had stormed to one of the greatest wet weather victories in recent history.
It must have been very demotivating for Kovalainen that on the day of his best chance to outshine Lewis Hamilton, he was handed an absolute drubbing.
That weekend removed any doubt about Kovalainen’s place at McLaren, and perhaps that is part of the reason why his pace dropped off so dramatically after Silverstone. Lewis continued his romp to the 2008 title whilst Heikki finished the season down in seventh, a result that must have been bitterly disappointing.
Kovalainen expected to be a lot stronger this year, and said before Melbourne “I totally believe I go into the new season with every chance of fighting for the world championship. I’ve learned so much from last year, I think I’ve developed both as a person and as a driver and I know that if the car is good then I’ll have every chance of fighting for wins.”
Sadly, Heikki appears to have continued with his late 2008 form and has fallen short of his best. His contract runs out at the end of this year and there is a chance that McLaren will not be seeking a renewal.
Whilst there are advantages in building the team around Lewis Hamilton and keeping Kovalainen as his support, focussing on just one driver has never been the McLaren way.
The big question therefore is who could replace Kovalainen at McLaren.
Nico Rosberg would be a very hot candidate for any Woking vacancy. McLaren actually wanted him instead of Kovalainen in late 2007, but were unable to prise the young German out of his Williams contract.
Rosberg may not have developed into the F1 superstar that many expected but he is still a great talent. Williams’ form has been rather shaky over the past few seasons so a quicker car would probably result in a quicker Nico. He raced with Lewis in the Mercedes sponsored Kart team (and actually beat him) so the two have a history of working together.
He is German, which helps Mercedes, and fits very snugly into the McLaren corporate mould. Rosberg could be the team’s dream ticket for the future.
He isn’t the only available option though.
Nick Heidfeld is another driver who could easily slot into the team. He has very strong links with McLaren having previously been their test driver, and he won the Formula 3000 Championship for them in 1999. He is not spectacular but is consistent and has sometimes compared very well against Kubica. His experience, especially in difficult cars, would also count for a lot making him a suitable partner for Hamilton.
Another potential candidate is Timo Glock thanks to Mercedes’ desire to have a German in their car. According to James Allen, the Toyota pilot is on the team’s “hitlist”.
Glock probably isn’t the best choice for McLaren as he seems to be much like his current teammate, Jarno Trulli. When the car is working well Timo is really on the pace, but when things aren’t going so strongly he is a long way behind. For example, he led the early laps in Bahrain quite comfortably, but when Toyota fitted the less durable tyres his laptimes dropped off by a huge margin. Glock was between two and three seconds per lap slower than others on the more difficult rubber, even after fuel load was taken into consideration.
He would probably fare a lot worse than Kovalainen so would not be a sensible alternative.
Perhaps the team will look outside F1 for their next driver instead. The last time they did that it worked out very well for them.
McLaren would love to introduce the next Lewis Hamilton into the sport, and putting him alongside the current Lewis Hamilton would create a formidable line up.
There are plenty of young stars out there with F1 potential, but one of the best is Paul Di Resta.
The Scottish youngster currently drives for Mercedes in the DTM series where he is a major force. He challenged for the championship in 2007 and 2008, and looks like doing so again in 2009 as Mercedes’ lead driver.
Di Resta has some genuine open wheel experience as well. He won the Formula 3 Euroseries in 2006, finishing ahead of Sebastian Vettel, Kazuki Nakajima, Sebastien Buemi, and Romain Grosjean.
Crucial to Di Resta’s chances of an F1 drive is that he has links with McLaren as well as Mercedes. Di Resta has spent considerable time with the Formula One team and has earnt the praise of Ron Dennis who said “Paul did a great job when we evaluated him on our simulator. We agreed to look at the possibility of integrating him within our F1 programme, but not necessarily with McLaren”.
With those comments in mind it seems that Di Resta went very close to securing a Force India drive this year.
If McLaren want to take a Hamilton-esque gamble he could be the best way to go.
Having said all that, Kovalainen still has time to turn his season around and has a great chance to start in Istanbul. He was much quicker than Lewis Hamilton in Turkey last year and would have won the race if Raikkonen hadn’t given him an early puncture so it’s a circuit that suits him very well.
He then has another chance to get revenge at Silverstone, and will be aiming to perform just as well in the race as he does in qualifying.
His future at McLaren may depend on it.