Lotus: Kovalainen unhappy with strategy before crash

Lotus claimed their upgrade package would be worth a second per lap but had to readjust their expectations on Friday.

Team principal Tony Fernandes said: “I always thought it would take some time for us to maximise the potential of the updates we have applied here, especially for the drivers who have basically a new rear end of the car to get to grips with.”

	Heikki Kovalainen	Jarno Trulli
Qualifying position	15	18
Qualifying time comparison (Q1)	1’25.874 (-0.647)	1’26.521
Race position		18
Laps	48/66	64/66
Pit stops	3	3

Lotus drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60	61
Heikki Kovalainen	104.276	94.461	93.388	93.223	92.942	92.657	92.854	92.774	92.972	93.168	93.45	94.655	95.645	94.949	95.938	99.751	110.402	93.24	92.219	92.39	92.947	92.623	92.426	92.66	94.46	92.918	94.048	97.716	108.818	91.679	90.889	92.322	90.716	90.618	90.751	91.471	91.305	91.689	92.251	93.087	97.836	111.376	90.747	92.063	97.618	93.747	91.651	91.392
Jarno Trulli	103.553	93.968	93.376	93.154	92.951	92.905	92.831	92.895	93.068	93.074	93.419	94.549	94.939	95.454	97.064	111.014	91.752	91.883	91.765	91.684	91.686	91.581	91.581	91.549	91.678	92.111	92.266	94.446	95.725	110.819	91.09	92.5	90.988	90.783	91.138	90.816	92.934	91.223	92.797	91.876	92.643	91.59	94.702	112.849	92.233	92.426	91.867	91.974	93.557	93.815	92.776	92.334	97.051	92.833	93.328	92.579	91.784	92.081	95.228	93.392	93.951

Heikki Kovalainen, Lotus, Barcelona, 2011

Heikki Kovalainen

Was encouraged by the progress made on Friday, saying: “I think we’ve seen an improvement today on where we were and throughout the sessions we could see that we were getting more and more out of the new package.

“The gap to the cars ahead seems reasonably small so I think it’s all positive.”

He made it into Q2 thanks to the problems suffered by Nick Heidfeld and Rubens Barrichello. Qualified 15th as neither of the Force Indias used soft tyres.

The team kept him out until lap 16 before making his first pit stop, by which time he was losing around three seconds per lap. Kovalainen said afterwards it had been a “poor call”, leaving him “left out for too long losing a lot of time”.

On lap 48 he braked too late for turn four, got on to the tyre marbles and hit the barrier.

Heikki Kovalainen 2011 form guide

Jarno Trulli

Trulli continued to have problems with the power steering on the T128 during practice. In qualifying a gearbox problem meant he only had one chance to set a time.

He picked up three places at the start and ran as high as eighth before his first pit stop. After that he slipped back and finished where he started.

He said: “Unfortunately towards the middle of the race I felt I had a problem with the exhaust which affected the rear end of the car and meant that my performance was not as good as earlier.

“But all in all, it was a very good race for me. I fought like a lion and I’m happy with myself and felt that I really got the best out of the car today.

“There’s still a bit of work to do to catch up with the guys in front, but it’s fantastic that we’ve lapped the guys behind us once again. The overall aero package is good – we just need to focus on developing that for the future and increase the gap even more from the guys behind, and keep on closing the distance to the cars ahead.”

Jarno Trulli 2011 form guide

2011 Spanish Grand Prix

Browse all 2011 Spanish Grand Prix articles

13 comments on “Lotus: Kovalainen unhappy with strategy before crash”

Douglas62500
23rd May 2011, 11:56

Fingers crossed for this team. Let’s just hope that could sort out their upgrades and chase down Williams.

AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
23rd May 2011, 20:10

Ditto!

BasCB (@bascb)
23rd May 2011, 12:02

Respect for Trulli to keep going after having the umpteenth problem with a gearbox or power steering.

Looks like Lotus is getting a competative speed into their car. But the reliability must stem Virgin hopefull they might still catch them.

Fixy (@)
23rd May 2011, 14:53

Trulli always has problems, he’s never satisfied with the car but qualifies close to Kovalainen (although I feel he exaggerates at times). If he had a working car what would he do? Still, nice to see Lotus so ahead in qualifying.

bosyber
23rd May 2011, 12:16

Looking at that laptime chart, both Lotus cars seem to have run about two or three laps too long on the first, and at least a lap too many on second stint.

Glad to finally see Trulli be a bit more positive, it was about time. It is not as easy as the team claimed at the start of the season to make up time, but they do seem to be making progress.

Icthyes (@icthyes)
23rd May 2011, 12:21

Yeh seemed a bit of a poor strategy from Lotus…

topdowntoedown (@topdowntoedown)
23rd May 2011, 12:24

Funny really that in the year when Team Lotus start getting their act together, the racing at the front is so compelling that they hardly get seen at all.

Kovalainen’s crash would have got about a dozen replays for most of the last decade, but this time we only saw a puff of dust from an on-board shot as Vettel passed the scene…

Bruce
23rd May 2011, 13:57

I hope that they continue to improve. I love their colors and their link to Caterham.

Dan Newton
23rd May 2011, 14:33

“But all in all, it was a very good race for me. I fought like a lion and I’m happy with myself and felt that I really got the best out of the car today”.

Trulli finally sounds happy about something. Lets hope things continue to improve for him.