Dimanche Review: Team Lotus – “By far our most solid race”

After fairly good qualifying sessions, Team Lotus leaves Malaysia with an encouraging result for the rest of their season, after Heikki Kovalainen’s 15th place. However, the T128 is still not the most reliable, and Jarno Trulli was forced to retire.

Heikki Kovalainen – 15th

« It was a rather good race overall. The balance was quite good with both types of tires and I think the strategy worked well for us: we changed tires at the right time and didn’t encounter any problems this afternoon.

I think we can be satisfied with this result after difficult free practices; we showed the kind of performance that had given us hope this winter, and now we need to continue developing the car and keep the pressure on the guys ahead of us. China will be a good test to see how our car performs in slightly cooler conditions, so the aim is to repeat our performance and keep pushing.

Jarno Trulli – Retirement

Unfortunately, a clutch problem prematurely put an end to my race, which is really a shame because we were well prepared for our home Grand Prix. I had a tricky start with the anti-stall system, but I managed, then after the first pit stop I locked a wheel before going off and had to regain lost ground again.

I overtook Timo but then the clutch gave out on me, which is unfortunate since we could have shown what the car was worth. »

Mike Gascoyne

The two drivers had a solid race although Jarno unfortunately had to return to the garage with a clutch problem. We were on a two-stop strategy with both our cars. It could have been difficult for Jarno, whose tire degradation was slightly higher, but it worked well with Heikki.

Our pace was quite good at the end of the race, especially when we were with the leading cars, and we were very close to overtaking one of the Toro Rosso as we crossed the finish line, which shows our progress. This weekend was undoubtedly by far our strongest race since we returned to Formula One, so it’s good to be back in the race.