By Matt Beer Wednesday, March 4th 2009, 11:16 GMT
Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, Jerez testing March 2009Heikki Kovalainen says he sees no reason why McLaren cannot use their kinetic energy recovery system from the first race after seeing great results from it in testing.
So far none of the teams have committed to running KERS in the Australian Grand Prix, with several squads admitting that they are behind schedule with the new system, and others intimating that they will wait until the championship returns to Europe at Catalunya in May.
When asked whether McLaren would use KERS in Melbourne, Kovalainen replied: "I'm 99 percent confident."
"I think we are now hitting a stage where we can run it all day, reliably, without any problems, at the maximum power," he said. "So unless somethings goes dramatically wrong, I don't see a reason why we shouldn't run it.
"Perhaps I'll have to call Norbert (Haug) and ask how confident he is. But what I see now, my feeling is from how well we're operating it at the track. That's why I think it's 99 percent sure we should be using it, because we're not experiencing any problems with it now."
Kovalainen acknowledged that McLaren could steal a march on the field if they are the only KERS runners in Australia - but he expects other teams to have their system in place by Melbourne as well.
"Hopefully it should be an advantage for us," he said.
"Certainly it's going to be an advantage at the start, it potentially gives a big benefit from the start to the first corner. And then obviously in the race if you're fighting and you need to overtake people.
"Hopefully other people don't get it and we get it, but there are other good teams around and I wouldn't underestimate anyone, so I wouldn't be surprised if many of the other teams had it as well."
The Finn added that he is also comfortable with using the KERS device in the wet after trying it during Monday's rain-affected session.
"It was fine," he said. "Obviously you have to wait a little bit longer before you can get the boost, because you are grip-limited more than you are power-limited. So you just have to back off a little bit more, but apart from that it's fine.
"It seemed to be working fine, and we had a proper shower on Monday but it seemed to be bulletproof so fingers crossed."
