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Formula One

Dennis: We settled for second

27/08/2008

McLaren team boss Ron Dennis has claimed he was happy to settle for second place at last week's Valencia grand prix from as early as the end of the qualifying session.

Dennis said once driver Lewis Hamilton had failed to overhaul Ferrari's Felipe Massa at the top of the standings on Saturday afternoon he instructed the team to adopt a conservative strategy that would guarantee them second spot in the race.

The claim comes after revelations that Hamilton drove in qualifying and in the race with a neck injury and was forced to take a series of painkillers and injections to see him through.

Hamilton's team-mate Heikki Kovalainen came fourth to ensure a total points haul of 13, reducing the gap at the top of the constructors championship to eight.

And Dennis described the weekend as "extremely solid" after it yielded "a very useful clutch of championship points".

However, he admitted: "In truth we lost the chance of outright victory in qualifying.

"In my view it's pretty clear that if Lewis had qualified with the same level of fuel as Felipe, he'd probably have been able to control the race from the front.

"But the nature of the circuit dictated that it was always going to be difficult for him to overtake - and, that being the case, we opted fairly early on to take the championship-strategic option of settling for second place.

"Following on from his victory in Hungary, Heikki also drove very strongly and helped bolster our points total in the constructors' championship.

"He responded well to the pressure applied by Kimi [Raikkonen] and thoroughly deserved his fourth place."