Lotus Racing was very happy with its showing in yesterday’s qualifying session for the Spanish GP, which will start hours from now. With new updates to the T127, the Malaysian owned team described the performance as “closing the gap to the midfield they’ve now set their sights on, and moving further away from the new teams they’ve led throughout 2010”.
It’s true that the gap is now reduced. Best of the Lotus duo, Jarno Trulli, qualified 19th ahead of teammate Heikki Kovalainen, places that are almost becoming permanently theirs on the starting grid. No surprise there, but the Italian’s time of 1:24.674 was just 1.5 seconds slower than the straggler of the midfield pack, which was Rubens Barrichello in his Williams, who did 1:23.125 to fall out in Q1. Trulli’s time was about 3.2 seconds slower than the best time in Q1 of 1:21.412, set by eventual pole sitter Mark Webber. That’s clearly some improvement in pace over previous GPs and Lotus eased past Virgin and HRT comfortably yesterday.
“It was an excellent session for the team today, and a very good job by both drivers. Jarno has been a bit less happy with the balance of his car today than in practice yesterday, but still put in a great performance, whereas Heikki felt the balance had improved. Overall, our times today show how the package we’ve brought to Barcelona has helped us move ahead, so we can all be very pleased. Now we’re all looking to close the gap to the teams ahead, and take the race to them,” said Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer.
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keep it up. i still think we need to discard the cosworth engine. :P
replace with ferrari/renault engine. jyeah!
nice work lotus! keep it up
way to go lotus!
is that fire in the picture?
Lets keep moving Lotus. Don’t stop otherwise you’ll be left behind.
determination makes impossible is nothing..
Hidup Teratai! yeahhh!!!!!!!
Lotus, If you continue the development at the same speed, next year sure can vs the midpack liao one…
omg, that flame from the exhaust is damn chun!
Well done Lotus. I agree with you guys on the engine department that lags the performance of this car. Where is the Air Asia logo on the car that Fernandes promised?
Air Asia still have contract with William this year. Next season we will see Air Asia at Lotus Racing cars.
Maybe next year.. lotus will make new chassis with less boxy parts… and new engine!
flame behind looks real, or is it sticker?
That’s real.. when they down shift, there will be some back fire, you can see them clear on night race in Singapore.
But this is the first time I have seen a back fire so clear on a day race.
is it like antilag?
Nothing close to that.
just the air-fuel mixture get pops out from the exhaust before a complete burns, as engine rev goes up during down shift..
Why would a NA engine need an antilag system for?
go lotus!!!
Fat lady sings… YOU LOSE again … and again… and again
Time wasters
Lose to what? More established team.?They are totally new team so don’t expect them like established team. Just like what somebody around here always said before..go build your team before bashing.LMAO
There is only one race guys, no established team or new team race. When you lose, you lose.
SO, does putting the Lotus team down make you feel good or somehow superior?
what about the driver????? we want fairuz fauzi!!!!!
Yawn !!! Different day but same shit delivered by Lotus
again & again.
Really pathetic and typical Malaysian..always want instant success without knowing that facts. Red Bull started F1 since 2005… so how many years they took to be at the top?
Minardi was never close to what Lotus has achieved , super aguri struggle like shit, spyker, midland are real pathetic…and you still want to complaint about the achievement of Lotus…come on la..they did well for the amount of time they are in the business….at least they never complaint of lack of funding…the team develop really well….
“Just 1.5 seconds”? Get real.
To be honest, I think we have done farely well finishing the races and finishing ahead of several of the other newcomers. It can be an EXTREMELY difficult task to score points during the maiden season especially when you are starting from scratch. It will take years (if not decades) to build a championship winning car/ team. Furthermore, its also undersirable to compare them with the other mid-performers (i.e. Williams, Renault, STR-Ferrari) given that the teams mentioned here has been in F1 for considerably amount of time.
Lotus has an experienced team with decent drivers on-board. Thefore, its expected for them to do better in the coming races and look forward scoring at least a point before the end of the season.
p/s: IThe current Cosworth (supposingly a cost effective solution) engine may give the car much speed it requires. It will interesting to see how well they perform in either a Renault, Mercedes or Ferrari powertrain.
To be honest, I think we have done farely well finishing the races and finishing ahead of several of the other newcomers. It can be an EXTREMELY difficult task to score points during the maiden season when you have to develop from ‘scratch’. It will take years (if not decades) to build a championship winning car/ team. Furthermore, its also undersirable to compare them with the other mid-performers (i.e. Williams, Renault, STR-Ferrari) given that the teams mentioned here have been in the sport for considerably amount of time.
Lotus has an experienced team with decent drivers on-board. Thefore, its expected for them to do better in the coming races and they should look forward scoring at least a point before the end of the season.
p/s: IThe current Cosworth (supposingly a cost effective solution) engine may NOT give the car much speed it requires. It will interesting to see how well the team perform in either a Renault, Mercedes or Ferrari powertrain.