Dennis eyes Silverstone glory
McLaren chief Ron Dennis has his sights set on victory at Silverstone after a penalty denied Kimi Raikkonen in the French Grand Prix.
Raikkonen set the fastest lap at Magny-Cours yesterday as he charged from 13th on the grid through to second after a 10-place penalty for an engine change on Friday ruined his victory chances.
That battling performance was not enough to cut the gap on world championship rival Fernando Alonso, who won in dominant style for Renault from pole position to stretch out a 24-point advantage.
Dennis is convinced Raikkonen’s engine penalty was all that stood in the way of a fourth win this season for the Finn – and is determined to seek revenge in this weekend’s British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
Dennis said: “I am happy with our pace, clearly the car has the speed to win. In reality we have a lot of speed. I am satisfied we did the best out of a difficult situation.
“The outcome is good, it’s only two points we have slipped behind and there is a lot of races to go so we just focus on Silverstone.
“We have the pace, that’s the frustration. I am looking forward to next weekend, we were extremely strong in testing there.
“Right now we should be just taking the positives out of the day which is that we have tremendous pace.
“The most important thing is to have the pleasure of winning the last race and which one it is becomes secondary in importance.
“We would have liked to have won this time but we are looking forward to Silverstone – it should be a great race.”
Dennis is confident he has provided Raikkonen with a world championship-winning car, but fears Alonso’s early-season advantage could prove insurmountable.
“I think we have the speed to win [the championship] but unfortunately we are a few points behind. There is a long way to go – these things can turn out, you never know,” he added.
McLaren have outpaced Renault over the last few races but bad luck has kept them from closing the championship gap.
They were particularly strong in testing at Silverstone and arrive in Britain as overwhelming favourites, although Dennis remains wary, especially after Juan Pablo Montoya was forced to retire with hydraulic problems yesterday.
“We don’t go anywhere with confidence because it is such a challenging sport but we had fantastic qualifying lap times in our test, our car seemed to be very competitive here,” he said.
“We go there with at least the understanding that we have the speed to win. Now we have to concentrate on giving Juan Pablo the best chance to pull himself up the grid and just do our best.
“It’s the first time Juan Pablo hasn’t finished a race and it would have been hugely advantageous for us if he had finished third.
“The thing is you just carry this problem of having such a disadvantage in the next qualifying [when Montoya must start early]. It’s already bad enough tht you don’t finish a race but the problem then is that you carry that forward.”
Behind the scrap between title rivals Alonso and Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher stayed in touch with third place for Ferrari.
Jenson Button finally scored his first points of the season with fourth place as Jarno Trulli took fifth for Toyota while Giancarlo Fisichella finished sixth to extend Renault’s advantage in the constructors’ championship to 18 points.
Ralf Schumacher ended up seventh in the other Toyota with Jacques Villeneuve claiming the final point for Sauber with eighth. David Coulthard just missed out in his Red Bull, finishing 10th.
