Ron Dennis has called for calm, and for Kovalainen to stop punishing himself for a mistake he made in the Australian Grand Prix yesterday, which ultimately cost him 4th position.
The Finnish driver, in his first race with McLaren, had just passed Alonso in the final corner with 1 lap left.
Kovalainen pulled into the straight, and as he went to pull off a tear-off strip from his helmet, he caught his pitlimiter button which slowed his car down.
Alonso narrowly missed the slowing car just in front of him, passed him and flew down the straight maximising advantage and taking that 4th position.
Kovalainen has been beating himself up about that incident ever since it happened.
“I have explained to him how punishing yourself has no benefit at all: he had a faultless race,” Dennis told Autosport.
“Okay, he hit the pitlane speed limiter but I’ve seen lots of people do that and I’m sure he won’t do that again.
“I could see the pain that he was in. I know he feels this is a fantastic opportunity for him and he doesn’t want to muck it up, and it would be counter-productive to him if there were any feeling that he did, because he didn’t.
“He did a fantastic job this weekend and did everything we asked him to do.”
