Friday: Team Lotus has high hopes
The Lotus team achieved good performances this morning, particularly placing Kovalainen in 14th during the first free practice. The balance of the car was difficult to find this afternoon, and both Trulli and the Finn complained about it. The team will focus on improving the car's setup tomorrow morning during the final free practice and will try to qualify in a good position, ahead of Virgin and HRT.
Luiz Razia – 23rd:
«It was a pleasure to be back in the car today. My practice session was prematurely stopped due to a suspension issue, but I could feel that significant progress had been made since I last drove the car in Barcelona. I hope I provided the team with many useful insights and I’m just a bit frustrated that I couldn’t accomplish everything planned because of the setback, but that’s racing for you.
Heikki Kovalainen – 14th and 18th:
It was a pleasure to experience a full day without reliability issues. It’s a good start, especially since the car’s balance is good. That was the case this morning, then we changed the settings in the afternoon, which did not have the desired effects. I was less comfortable with the car, but the heavy traffic didn’t help. We’ll work tonight to get the best out of the car tomorrow.
Jarno Trulli – 19th:
« It’s good not to have encountered any problems this afternoon during my tests, but I was a bit disturbed by the car’s balance, to be honest. We will work on it tonight, and I hope the data we have will allow us to have a good session tomorrow morning for the last tests before the qualifiers. We should be in the same position as we left in Malaysia. »
Riad Asmat – Chief Officer
« It was quite a good day today for the team. We did quite a few laps and gathered data with both soft and hard tires. We are confident for tomorrow and Sunday. »
