Lotus happy to see Chandhok do troublefree session
It was a pretty good Friday for all three Team Lotus drivers. Test driver Karun Chandhok had a chance to complete a reasonable number of laps, even though the weather made it a bit more difficult. The team used the time to gather some data on the wet and intermediate tyre, as any other testing was difficult.
Karun Chandhok (only FP1), Chassis T128-04:
“That was good a session. Obviously the conditions weren't ideal but it's useful mileage for me to get a feel for the car and the intermediate tyres - I'd never driven on Pirelli's intermediate before and it's a bit different to last year but I enjoyed myself out there and am pleased I’ve been able to add my contribution here at Silverstone, so close to my home in the UK.”
Jarno Trulli, Car 21, Chassis T128-01:
“This morning it was a very good session with the stable conditions we had. This afternoon the weather obviously made our life a little bit tougher and in the end I don’t think we ran enough with the intermediate tyre, which was looking pretty good at in the last minutes. But, I think we still completed most of the programme today, so from the data side it was pretty satisfactory.”
Heikki Kovalainen, Car 20, Chassis T128-04:
“That was okay. The conditions were obviously tricky, starting with heavy showers and then drying out towards the end, but everything on the car was fine and the balance of the car felt good on both the wets and the inters. I’m not sure how much we’ve learnt, it’s always difficult with this sort of weather, but it’s the same for everyone so hopefully we’ll have more time on track tomorrow and we’ll see where we are in qualifying.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader:
“We were not able to run so much today due to the weather, but in spite of this we were able to learn quite a bit about the engine behaviour in these conditions, especially on driveability and the cooling configurations of the car which is quite tight in the wet. The main challenge will be to work out the optimum fuel consumption for tomorrow because if it the weather dries up we have not run in dry conditions yet. It will be good for us to have an idea of that, so I hope it will be better in P3 tomorrow to make that a bit easier for us."
Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer:
“Overall, a pretty reasonable day. I think the cars look more competitive than in Valencia and even though the day was made difficult by the changing weather conditions we were still able to try out two different aero configurations this morning, and work through a number of runs on the wet and intermediate compounds, so we will look through the data we have generated tonight and see what we can apply for tomorrow’s sessions.”
Tony Fernandes, Team Principal:
"It is very good to be back at Silverstone where it all started for this team two years ago when Mike managed to get me into the paddock and we started talking about Team Lotus. The changes to the track here are fantastic, for me this is now the best paddock in the whole calendar so I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to the BRDC for having done such a great job on this historic circuit. On track, it was a reasonable day for us – I am not too sure how much we can take from the limited running we had but I am happy with the job that both the race drivers did today, and am pleased that Karun was finally able to complete a decent number of laps in FP1. He is a great asset to our team and we are very pleased to have him on board. I am also delighted to see the continuing development of Caterham Team AirAsia, our GP2 team who are setting very high standards in their first year. They have come together into a race-winning outfit extremely quickly and it is very exciting to see their continued progress from within the heart of the team."
