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The Italian Grand Prix at Monza marks the last
European race of the 2010 FIA Formula One™ World
Championship. As the Lotus Racing team heads to
Jarno Trulli’s home country, Jarno and a number
of key team members take the time to look ahead
to what promises to be another exciting race for
the Anglo-Malaysian squad.
Mike Gascoyne, Lotus Racing Chief Technical
Officer: “Looking back to last weekend, Spa was
in many ways one of our best performance of the
year so far. We have had better positions at the
end of a number of races, but in terms of
reliability, Spa was our strongest performance
to date. Now we go to Monza and that’s always a
special place to race – the Tifosi create an
incredible atmosphere, and while it’s obviously
focused on Ferrari, I think seeing Jarno and
Heikki in our green and yellow cars will be
pretty special for some of the most passionate
motorsport fans in the world.
“Monza will also be very special for me, Tony,
Din, Nasa, Riad and the whole team on a personal
level. Race day is the 12th September, which is
exactly one year to the day since we heard that
our entry into the 2010 Formula One™ World
Championship had been accepted. It’s hard to put
into words just what that means to all of us,
but it’s already been an incredible 365 days,
and we have many more exciting times to come.
I’ve been asked a number of times if I really
thought we’d be able to do what looked to many
like an impossible task – creating a team from
literally just words on a piece of paper to now
sitting 10th in the Championship, best of the
new teams and with a very bright future ahead of
us.
“Onto the track itself: Monza is unique as it’s
now the lowest downforce circuit on the modern
Formula One™ calendar. For the race weekend,
we’ll have a revised low downforce package with
new front and rear wings, plus a few other
smaller modifications to the cars.”
Heikki Kovalainen: “After Spa I’m feeling really
good physically and mentally. Before we got to
Belgium, I had a proper rest for a week, and
then got back into training for the second
couple of weeks of the summer break to prepare
myself for the end of the season. It paid off
because I felt great all weekend in Spa and now
I’m looking forward to Monza and then the
remaining races. Monza is one of the real
highlights of the year and it’ll be good to be
back in Italy. It’s a very different type of
circuit and it has a great atmosphere. Obviously
Ferrari have huge support out in the stands, but
so do the other teams as the fans just love F1™.
I think it’ll be a pretty cool weekend – for us
drivers it’s a high speed track and with the low
downforce configuration it makes it very
interesting to race there. For the fans it’s
cool as well as the cars are pushed to the
limit, and they look and sound pretty awesome on
track.”
Jarno Trulli: “Monza is a very special Grand
Prix. We Italian drivers have fantastic support
out there, and the fans are really fired up for
the race. It’s such a warm atmosphere, you can’t
help but enjoy it. The track is challenging, but
it’s not as technical as some of them. You
obviously need good top speed, low downforce,
good traction good braking stability. Everyone
talks about the low downforce, but the brakes
play a really crucial role. You need to have the
confidence to brake as late as possible and as
hard as possible at the chicanes, and then you
need to have really good traction to get
yourself out of them as quickly as possible. I
think we saw in Spa that our car is pretty good
at the quicker tracks, so I think we’ll be able
to repeat our performance in Belgium – as long
as we come out ahead of our nearest rivals we’ll
be happy, and then we’ll be back in the air for
the remaining races of 2010.”
Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “I’ve had to
watch the last few races on TV as other
commitments have kept me away from the races, so
it’ll be good to be back on track in Italy. The
last couple of weeks have been very exciting for
the whole team – we’ve seen Nabil Jeffri, a
Malaysian superstar in the making, become the
youngest ever driver to test an F1™ car at the
aero test we ran on Wednesday, and it was a very
proud moment for me to see him put in a great
day’s work for us in what must have been a
pretty stressful environment for such a young
guy. He proves what I’ve always believed – work
hard to achieve your dreams and they will come
true. That’s the same for everyone in Lotus
Racing – exactly one year ago on September 12th
our Formula One™ dream came true, and now we’ll
be competing at one of the world’s great race
tracks, bringing the green and yellow cars back
to where they belong, and I can’t wait to see
the reaction of the crowds when we take to the
track. Mike has already said what it means to
him to see our cars racing hard just 12 months
since we started work on this amazing team, and
I echo his thoughts entirely. It has been an
amzing journey already, but after Monza we’ll be
heading back to Asia, and it’s going to keep
getting more exciting with every step we take.”
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