With the first round of flyaway races done and dusted, Lotus Racing returns to its real home of Europe. The past two weeks has been hectic for the Hingham based outfit. Since China, the team has beaten the Icelandic ash cloud, unpacked and repacked 34 tonnes of freight, run an intensive series of tests on chassis T127-02, fitted an entire upgrade package to the race cars, taken delivery of its newly painted race trailers and flown the race team back to Barcelona for this weekend’s Spanish GP, where they expect to do well.
“All the teams will have upgrades for Barcelona, but we’re hoping that ours is even more significant than our rivals because we received our entry so late and had to freeze the initial specification of the car very early in the design process. We do expect it to be reasonably significant – we have an aero package with revised sidepods, front wings and brake ducts, and a number of mechanical changes, but obviously we’ll have to wait and see what step forward our rivals will also make,” said technical boss Mike Gascoyne.
“It’s very gratifying to see the whole factory in full operation, with every department now nearly fully staffed but starting to work to their full potential. This means we can now look at more long-term development and R&D programmes, and start thinking about future cars,” he added.
Drivers Heikki and Trulli took the opportunity to fly back home for well-deserved breaks. “I spent two nights at home in Switzerland then flew to Finland to see my family for the first time since Christmas. I had some new golf clubs fitted by Nike Finland and have been practicing with them too, so my golf’s definitely improving,” Kovalainen said.
“I think I’ve had a fair bit of bad luck so far, but I’m looking to put that behind me and see how much further forward we can go with the updates,” said Trulli. “I like Barcelona – we all know every bit of it very well as we test there a lot, and have raced there for years. Monaco is obviously a very special place for me – a lot of my fans will be out in force, and I love going back to where I’ve won, so that’ll be a busy, but good week.”
The Monaco GP is up next weekend, the first ever street race for this rookie team.
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all i hope for them is the best…
everyone can hope for d best..but this is F1 lo…..not any motor racing but F1……let’s be realistic.lotus wont be able to achieve anything significant for many many yrs to come..look at toyota,BMW,Honda etc etc. talk is cheap indeed free.show us the results but then again dont expect anything for at least the next 1 decade or perhaps longer? let’s all wake up.
I think what they need is a awesomely tuned engine… right now they’re pretty slow, like when ya watch the fast cars overtake them and just get away from em just like that.. kinda potong stim to watch.. i’d like them to just be able to keep up a lil longer and not just lose out after the 1st corner or even on the straights… would love to see me give a challenge even if they lose but would give me some adrenaline and hope watching it happen! :)
While its true that they have the slowest engine, again it has to be pointed out the main problem is general DOWNFORCE, not horsepower.
There is no use for an engine matching that of Mclaren, but come the corner/chicane, the low downforce means breaking early to avoid spinning/sliding. When this is the case, any midfield team with a lesser engine but better downforce can outbrake the car, hence no hope of defending the position against them.
And there is an engine freeze, ie all teams are not allowed to tweak their engine throughout the season (save for special exemption from FIA).
Looking forward to the next race. Hope the improvements are what they say it is.
i hope amanah saham 1malaysia will be invested in this team to bring some victory and also profit to the rakyats
agree with you bangla bro.(btw pls change your indecent nickname la) We SHOULD make EPF and bank negara, CIMB or Maybank invest in the team as well.The teams badly need fundings. We need to afford to hire a better driver than the dumbass Kovalainen and trulli. They arent even the top-tier drivers.
So, let create a group in the facebook hoping Mr Najib will see it and realise.
good luck lotus
remember after lotus’ sucess we can change name to daun keladi or daun pisang to sound more malaysian. No more daun lotus.
nanti tukaq jadi daun teratai F1 team…
Team Water Lily
bla bla bla……and u guys still 4 second off the pace……. Amanah saham 1malaysia is too valuable to dump into this losing team…………
The moment if they announce will invest in this shet team Im gonna withdraw all my money out !.
u invest in AS1M ka? as u no1malaysia supporter
bro chillout la…if u dun dump money for R&D , how can they win? dun try u wont know…..btw dun u feel proud dumping your HARD earned money into their team, altho they may not win…the satisfaction of trying IS there. Be proud of IT!!!
Correct 3X….
the Hijau kuning lotus makes kedah FA team proud
Yeah, pulon Lotus pulon…!!
good luck!!
looking forward for the significant improvement, Malaysia Boleh.
Sure Lotus, you can hope all you want la…….hahaha
I oso hope I can will be the next FIA president next year…I oso hope I will be the 1st Malaysian to set foot on the Mooon. I oso hope I can be richer than Bill Gates x10…I oso hope I’m smarter than Einstein, etc……
You should not drive a Honda. If you know what I mean.
Anybody expecting instant success from Lotus is an idiot. There has only been one team who manage succeed at the start of its F1 season and that was in the late 70s when car design wasn’t as sophisticated as it is now. Should we give up after only 4 races? Hell no! If teams were to quit after not being successful after four races, then F1 would have no cars! If that was the case, then McLaren, Williams, Red Bull Racing & Renault among others would not be on the grid, because they never won a race from the get-go!
Seldom agree with you but this I have to.
I can’t believe they just bash them even before they race the new updates. Pathetic basher. Even Mat saleh on other F1 site gave them chances, so why can’t you guys give them. For god sake, they haven’t even been in F1 for a year.
I understand why ppl bash Proton for the 25 years but for Lotus F1, I have simply no clue at all.
haiyo typical malaysian very pessimistic la.. look at a bigger picture like mahathir and toni braxton fernandez, the world’s greatest and respected leaders (If the world is not dominated by the west , they would win noble price tag anytime) We 1 malaysian can eat lotus paste mooncake- any bran…tai thong , overseas,…watever. tambah 2 telur masin
Awesome!! Hope the team bags a few points in europe!
this is call victory in progress! keep improve …and dont quit F1 after next few years :D
actually i wish thy didnt have to say thr r optimistic and all that,in f1 u should always downplay ur chances…dont put too much preasure,wat abt if all those upgrades dont go to plans in spain?? eveyone will like a fool….hope thy show improvements though
F1 is a high profile sport. a lil’ hype here and there is perfectly normal. we’ll wait and see. those who support lotus can have something to expect while bashers can have more bashing.
personally, i’ll like to see a team work their way up (reality:slow and agonizing wait) but it’s our team what……. support la sikit.
good one we keep.. bad one we leave.. XD
Yes KOVI my golf is definitely improving too ! who would not?
Give the team some room for improvements. Hopefully the package that they announced can go to reality and who knows they will collect some points from the remaining of the races for this year.
Salam..
this lotus thing reminds me of the movie cool runnings about a jamaican bobsled team competing in the calgary winter olympics.
u go to think, feel and do as malaysians…not disguising as a mat saleh.
put trulli and kovalainen on a spicy curry diet and you will see them racing first to the finish line rushing to go to the toilet. lol! ferrari and mclaren won’t know what hit them.