Saturday: Team Lotus « reasonably » optimistic
The Team Lotus had a fairly calm day, apart from a DRS issue affecting Jarno Trulli's T128, and even built some suspense in Q1 as Heikki Kovalainen was only half a second behind Rubens Barrichello's Williams. The Malaysian team hopes to join the fight tomorrow and is eagerly awaiting the updates announced for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Heikki Kovalainen – 19th and 18th
« I am happy with the result. We just need a little something more to get into the fight in Q2, but today, we had a good strategy, and we got everything we could out of the tires. I am happy with my performance, the fast lap was just right, without mistakes, it’s a good feeling to keep getting closer like this. We are expecting an update for Barcelona that will hopefully allow us to extract more performance than what the competition will bring, but we are almost there, so now it’s just about maintaining our effort and delivering another strong performance tomorrow.
Jarno Trulli – 20th and 19th
« I’m quite satisfied. Unfortunately, I encountered a DRS problem that obviously cost me dearly on a circuit like this, but I think we all did as well as we could hope for today. Our race pace definitely gives us a chance to fight with the cars in front, so hopefully, we can solve the DRS issue and repeat what we did in the race in China.
Mike Gascoyne, technical director
« I think we can reasonably be happy with this qualification, and our two drivers did the best they could with the car. Unfortunately, we started the qualifications knowing that we had a problem with the DRS on Jarno’s car, and it cost us quite a bit of time, which explains his final position. Nevertheless, we know that we are more economical with the tires in races than the cars ahead of us, so I think we can be competitive tomorrow and join the fight with the cars in front. »
