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Friday at the Bahrain Grand Prix marked an
historic day for Lotus Racing, exactly six
months to the day since the team's entry into
the 2010 Formula One™ World Championship was
confirmed. Jarno Trulli was first car on track
as the pit lane lights turned green, followed
closely by Heikki Kovalainen as the team saw
their incredible efforts since September 12th
2009 come to fruition in the desert heat.
The morning session saw the team complete 36
laps in total, with both Heikki (21 laps) and
Jarno (15 laps) completing their planned
programs and stepping out of their respective
cars satisfied with their morning’s work. As
track temperatures climbed to nearly 50° after
lunch they both returned to work, Jarno notching
up another 14 laps and Heikki 23 more and
testing aero upgrades that had been fitted over
the lunch break. Heikki’s best time of the
afternoon session was 2.00.873 and Jarno
2.00.990.
Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne gave his
thoughts on the team’s first outing of the race
season, saying “A good day for the team after a
very long night preparing the cars for today.
Everyone worked very hard and it was satisfying
to see us first out on track and then put in a
solid performance throughout the day. We tried
an aero upgrade this afternoon and we’ll look at
the results of that in this afternoon’s debrief,
but now we’re looking forward to putting in
another professional performance tomorrow in
qualifying.”
Thoughts now turn to tomorrow’s qualifying
session and the forthcoming race, with Team
Principal Tony Fernandes arriving in Bahrain to
add his support to the Lotus Racing team’s
efforts on track.
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