By Simon Strang Sunday, April 27th 2008, 14:22 GMT
Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, Barcelona 2008Lewis Hamilton says that Heikki Kovalainen's accident in the Spanish Grand Prix reminded him of his own crash during qualifying for the European Grand Prix at Nurburgring last year.
Kovalainen speared head-on into the barriers on lap 22 at Turn 9 after a left front rim failure caused his tyre to deflate.
Watching the replay on the big screens while running behind the safety car in the aftermath of the shunt, Hamilton, who finished third at Barcelona, said the accident was similar to that he suffered in Germany when a loose wheel caused his tyre to fail at the fastest part of the track.
"I am glad for Heikki that he is okay," said Hamilton. "I came past and saw there was a car in the wall and it just looked red and didn't know if it is was us or one of the Ferraris, but I saw a glimpse of the footage on the TV and it was reminiscent of my experience at the Nurburgring.
"The team told me it was Heikki and Ron [Dennis] came on the radio and said he was okay but slightly concussed. I am sure he will bounce back."
Hamilton added that he was not concerned that the failure may be repeated on his own car during the race.
"No, I think if you have those problems... if you let those things get to your mind you are in trouble," he said. "That would put you in the wrong position, it didn't cross my mind once, we did a great job, the car was reliable and we were able to keep pushing."
The 23-year-old, who moved up to second in the drivers' standings by dint of his first podium finish since Melbourne, said that he was relieved to have finished third in Spain.
"It is good to be back and obviously when we qualified fifth, we knew it would be difficult to beat the Ferraris, so the key was to get a good start and make up as many places as possible," he said.
"We knew Fernando [Alonso] would be lighter so he didn't cause us any problems, in the middle stint I had to try and keep with Felipe [Massa] but they seem to look after their rear tyres better than us still, in the last stint I could keep quite close.
"It is amazing how close all the cars are, [Robert] Kubica was extremely close to me. It is impressive all the cars are so close.
"I know from past experiences in F3 that Robert is one of the hardest to overtake, very, very aggressive on the first lap but I was able to get up the inside of him and I was pretty much past him and had to make sure I covered my ground. A good start for us, we had two bad races and to come back on the podium is fantastic."
