Heikki Kovalainen and Team Lotus "too optimistic"
The Finnish driver for Team Lotus, Heikki Kovalainen, admitted that the mid-table ambitions expressed by his team at the start of the season were "too optimistic."
Although Team Lotus remains to this day the best of the smaller teams in Formula 1, the objectives set out by technical director Mike Gascoyne at the beginning of the season are far from being achieved.
Indeed, the British engineer hoped that his team could fight for points against Williams and Toro Rosso. It must be noted that Tony Fernandes’ team is not succeeding, with only two 13th place finishes as their best results, in Australia and Monaco, thanks to Jarno Trulli.
Heikki Kovalainen reacts and urges his team to put in more effort. “I think the goals have been too optimistic,” he tells our Finnish colleagues at Manipe F1. “With the tools we have now, we cannot reach the midfield and fight with teams like Renault or Mercedes. We clearly don’t have the structure in place to achieve that, but I’m still confident.”
The Finn, having been with major teams (Renault and McLaren), thinks that Team Lotus’s facilities need to be improved. « This is an area where we still need to improve. Our facilities are not big enough. The tools available to our engineers and designers are not good enough. We are working on these areas to provide our staff with better tools to truly be able to keep up with this development race. »
The approach of the summer break seems to be a crucial moment for many teams to make adjustments.
