A sunny day in Melbourne welcomed Lotus Racing
to their first practice session of round two of
the 2010 Formula OneTM season. Both drivers were
keen to get going and test the cars on the
semi-street track of Albert Park, and once again,
a Lotus Cosworth was out first, Jarno Trulli
being first car on track.
Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus-Cosworth T127-01): 26
laps, best time 1.31.654: "First session was
good - pretty much how we were planning to do
it. We had a little problem with the
differential but we managed to work around it
quickly. It meant that the car wasn't quite
performing 100% but it's no big deal, and we
were able to put some good laps in and check the
car, the balance and the tyres and we're pretty
happy about it - all in all I feel very
comfortable in the car."
Jarno Trulli (Lotus-Cosworth T127-03) 13 laps,
best time 1.31.654: "We had a small issue but in
the end we put in two good runs which meant we
could check the balance and the tyres. It's good
to be back in Melbourne and running and I'm
looking forward to having a better session this
afternoon."
The second practice session on Friday afternoon
in Melbourne began under cloudy skies with light
rain falling, curtailing track time for Lotus
Racing throughout the afternoon session. Despite
this the team ran a solid session and finished
ahead of both other new teams having completed a
total of 32 laps in second practice, with Jarno
Trulli finishing the session 20th (17 laps / 30
laps total) with a best time of 1.30.695 and
Heikki Kovalainen 18th on 1.29.860 (15 laps / 41
laps total).
Jarno Trulli: "It's been a bit of a difficult
day because we lost a bit of time this morning,
and unfortunately this afternoon the track was
pretty wet so we couldn't really find a good set
up. When I went out I had a few issues with
understeer but, though it'll be a little
difficult tomorrow, we'll see what we can learn
in final practice before qualifying starts."
Heikki Kovalainen: "The second session was much
better for me, because the car functioned very
well and we had the differential working 100%.
The car felt really really good and we were very
pleased with the way it was behaving. Obviously
the rain disrupted things a little bit, but
everyone was in the same boat. So, we're well
prepared, and we're just going to try to
maintain the reliability that we've achieved so
far. Overall we're in really good shape."
Mike Gascoyne, Lotus Racing Chief Technical
Officer: "Obviously the second session was
affected by rain which made it difficult but we
were able to run both types of tyre and get a
feeling for how they both behave. Overall not a
bad day - we got through most of our program,
despite the conditions in the second session, so
I'm pretty pleased."
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