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Saturday at the Korean Grand Prix began with
a trouble free third practice session for Lotus
Racing with the good news continuing into the
afternoon when Jarno Trulli finished at the head
of the other new teams in 19th place, with team
mate Heikki Kovalainen behind him in 21st.
Jarno Trulli (Chassis T127-02) FP3: 15 laps,
best time 1.41.623, 19th / QUALIFYING: 19th,
1.40.521, 10 laps “I’m happy with how it has
gone today and I think my final lap was pretty
good. The track was very dusty again in both
sessions today, and that obviously affects the
tyres, but I think we did as well as we could
have hoped for this afternoon. I want to say
thank you to my mechanics again because they
have been working really hard all weekend – it
has been a bit of a tough couple of days so far,
because the bad luck I had yesterday limited my
track time, and it’s thanks to the guys in the
garage that I’ve managed to get in enough
running time to set me up for that quick lap
today.”
Heikki Kovalainen (Chassis T127-03) FP3: 19 laps,
best time 1.42.095, 21st / QUALIFYING: 21st,
1.41.768, 9 laps “I’m pretty disappointed with
how it went today. We were looking ok this
morning but I think the strategy this afternoon
didn’t give me a great chance to go any quicker
– the traffic obviously played its part, and
when you’re trying to push on a dirty track it’s
always going to be a struggle. But we’re here to
fight tomorrow, and as the grip levels evolve I
think our car will become stronger, so there’s
all to play for in the race.”
Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: “I’m
reasonably happy with the qualifying today,
although it’s a little disappointing that the
tactics in qualifying, and the traffic, played
their part in denying Heikki a clear run at a
quick time. Jarno produced a very good lap to
finish the best of the new teams on his final
run, and I think that these grid positions give
us a good chance of having a strong race
tomorrow.”
Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “A pretty good
day for us, and seeing Jarno put in such a good
lap at the end of Q1 after a slightly difficult
weekend on his side of the garage shows exactly
what he and his pitcrew are made of. We made a
mistake with Heikki’s strategy, and that
prevented him from being able to get closer to
Jarno, but a good job by both drivers, and the
whole team, to keep us ahead of our nearest
competitors.
“From a team perspective, it has been very
pleasing to see what a great event the race
organisers have put on here in Korea. We were
never in any doubt that Korea would pull
something special out of the bag for us, and
from the moment the cars first went out on track
yesterday, the welcome Lotus Racing and the
whole F1™ fraternity has had here has been
outstanding. It was particularly good to see a
couple of very dedicated Lotus Racing fans
waving our flag in the stands, and the Korean
media have given us some excellent coverage, so
I think we will leave here having gained another
army of new fans. We will do our best to reward
them with a strong performance in tomorrow’s
race.”
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