Sunday afternoon in Bahrain, with both cars finishing the race, Heikki in 15th and Jarno in 17th, Lotus Racing established themselves as the best of new teams. Every single target they have fixed have been met. So it’s really good sign for Lotus Racing. Although towards the end of the race Jarno had hydraulic problems, he still managed to bring his car home.
Reliability is the key for a new F1 team, Virgin and Campos have not yet achieved this. Thus, I expect Lotus to have advantage over them going into second race in Melbourne in two weeks time. Once reliability is rock solid, then Mark Gascoyne will be able to extract better performance from the car. This is crucial, it doesn’t matter how fast your car is if you cant finish the race.
Tony Fernandes (right) and Richard Branson (left).
Happiest man of all, Tony Fernandes gave the team a stirring speech to thank everyone for the hard work so far, and lay out the challenge ahead after the result of the race,
“The last six months have shown that if you dream you can achieve, but now it’s not about being the best of the new teams, it’s about making a serious challenge for the very top.
Well I’m sure he is happy considering what Richard Branson will endure if the trend continues with the same pattern. I’m referring to the bet if some of you didn’t know what I was trying to imply.
Lotus’ Malaysian fan should not be worry too much about the pace of the car as it is normal for new team not to be on the same pace with old teams of F1. The old teams have perfected their machine with experience of almost similar regulations from last season. If Lotus were to fight with them early in the season, then the old teams are doing a very poor job.
The view from Lotus’ cockpit. This is Jarno’s and Heiki’s office this season. Pretty interesting view isn’t it?
“I made a good start and avoided the accident at the second corner but found myself in the gravel so at this stage I was nearly last, but then I started picking up pace and catching the people in front. The car was understeering quite a lot and I couldn’t really predict the balance so at the pitstop the team, who did a really good job, changed the front wing setting and I started pushing again and putting in some good laps. At the end of the race I had a hydraulic problem so I just had to get it to the end of the race. I’m really happy and proud for the team because in six months every single target we have fixed we have met so it’s really good”
“It was a good race for our team – to get both cars to the finish is a great achievement. My car didn’t have a single problem, I know Jarno did and managed to nurse his car to the end, but the primary goal was to get both cars to the end and we achieved that. So far the team has reached every goal we set ourselves so that is fantastic. In terms of my race, I had a good start and was battling with a lot of guys we didn’t think we’d be fighting with. My tyres were fine, and the pitstop was good, but I lost a bit of time whilst letting cars past, and we’ll look at the strategy for Australia to work around that better. I really enjoyed driving the car, it felt really good and it was good to push. Everybody in the team should be really happy but now the honeymoon is over and we need to start working on better results.”
It’s good to see that both drivers are happy with their achievement. Certainly from what I see, there is a positive aura in the team. This is important for the motivation, to keep them going in a very tough world of Formula 1 and still keep the sanity at the end of the day.
Editorial : Mu’az Zakaria
Image Source : Lotus Racing
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