Saturday: The Team Lotus drivers gave it their all today
The Team Lotus drivers faced some difficulties during the qualifying session, but that didn't stop them from recording very good times. They easily outpaced the HRT and Virgin drivers and got closer to the Sauber drivers in particular. Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli hope to enjoy themselves in tomorrow's race and, why not, join the battle with the Saubers, the Williams, and the Lotus Renaults, who start just ahead of them.
Heikki Kovalainen – 20th and 18th
I think I got the most out of the car in qualifying and managed to put in a good lap towards the end of my stint. Honestly, I’ve been struggling a lot since the beginning of the weekend to find a good balance and to get the tires to heat up properly, so to arrive on Saturday and manage to set a time just 0.7 seconds behind Kamui (Kobayashi) seems really good. Given that the track continues to improve throughout the weekend, I have to say that I’m really enjoying driving on this circuit, so tomorrow should be a fun day, especially since we’ve recently proven that we can compete with the cars in front of us throughout the race.
Jarno Trulli – 19th and 19th
I had a bit of bad luck with traffic on my fastest laps and I think I could have found a few more tenths, but we were close to our limit today during these qualifying sessions. We’ve made a step forward since yesterday as the times show, but we know that our qualifying pace doesn’t reflect our race pace so I hope to make an excellent start tomorrow as in the last races and we’ll see where we finish after the race.
Mike Gascoyne – Technical Director of Team Lotus
I think we can be satisfied with our performance during these qualifications here. Our drivers were close to the maximum during their fast laps and even though they had some issues with traffic and difficulties getting both types of tires up to temperature, we finished Q1 being close to the group ahead of us. We know we can compete with several cars in the races, so the goal for Sunday will be to repeat our races in Japan and Korea and to maintain the good momentum we have had for several races until the end of the season.
