Lotus Proud Of Heikki Kovalainen’s Australia Finish

Lotus boss Tony Fernandes said he was proud of his driver Heikki Kovalainen after the Finn brought home his T127 chassis for the second time in succession. In a difficult race full of incidents and mishaps, Kovalainen kept himself out of trouble, steered well clear of the faster cars coming through and managed to see the chequered flag once again, albeit five laps down on the leaders.

Before the race Kovalainen expressed his wish to get the car to the finish to complete another race distance, which he achieved to the delight of his team. The only sour point of Lotus’s weekend was the non-starting Jarno Trulli, who sat in his garage as the lights went out, looking at his car in pieces all over the floor. A hydraulics problem caused Trulli to miss the start and after a handful of laps they gave up and retired the car.

I’m disappointed for Jarno, but Heikki did us proud – three places away from a point, and he was keeping pace with most of the other cars throughout the race.

Maybe it would have been nice if three other cars had gone out so we could get a point, but, joking aside, it is good that at this stage of the season we’re already thinking about points. We’re in a nice position for Malaysia. Tony Fernandes.

I’m not so sure Lotus can be thinking about points just yet. Although Heikki was in P13, this was down to the high attrition rate in Australia, bought about by the inclement weather causing incidents and the unreliability of the other newcomers, Virgin and Hispania Racing.

I enjoyed it today and had good fun out there. Our target was to finish the race and from the start we were quite comfortably ahead of the new teams. When Glock dropped out I just focused on keeping up a decent rhythm, not making any mistakes and bringing the car home.

Now we go to Malaysia with a good feeling and we’re all looking forward to that. Heikki Kovalainen.

It would seem as though Lotus are indeed now leading the new teams, with two race finishes to Hispania’s one and Virgin’s none. In Australia, the team also out-qualified the other two, showing the improvements they have made are working.

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