Nick Heidfeld says he has been encouraged by his recovery in the Spanish Grand Prix, after starting the race from last place. The German Renault driver failed to set a time in qualifying after his car caught fire during final practice on Saturday. Despite starting from the bottom of the grid, Heidfeld finished in eighth position after a strong drive through the field.
"I'm satisfied with eighth after starting from last position," said Heidfeld. "Just like in Turkey, with one or two laps more I could have gained one or two more positions from the two Mercedes, but it's still a good result if you look at where I started and everything that happened to the car over this weekend.
"I had a good start then I had to fight through the field with many overtaking moves, so it was good fun for me behind the wheel. It's always encouraging to put in a strong performance, and I'm more happy and relaxed heading to Monaco."
In contrast, teammate Vitaly Petrov was disappointed with his showing in the Spanish race after finishing in 11th, having started from sixth position.
"I am naturally disappointed not to make better use of my grid position and not pick up some points," he said. "It seems that my qualifying position had little effect for the race today, so we need to analyze in detail exactly why that happened.
"I managed to start OK and move up a position into fifth, but it was then difficult to get to the leading pack, which is where we want to be.
"But, this is one result and one result only and I want to put things right in Monaco, where qualifying will be extremely important. Of that there is little doubt. At least as a team we picked up some more points with Nick, so we must take the positives and move forward."