Lotus F1 car worse than 2003 Minardi says Heikki

Heikki Kovalainen has admitted that the Lotus T127 is worse than the Minardi he tested more than six years ago. Kovalainen drove a Minardi at Vallelunga in late 2003, just a few days after making his F1 test debut with Renault. After two years at McLaren, Kovalainen is driving for F1 debutants Lotus this year and has been testing its new car for the last two weeks.

At the end of 2003, Minardi was regularly five seconds off the pace of the leaders. Kovalainen’s team-mate Jarno Trulli said last weekend that he thinks the T127 is about 4-5 seconds off the pace of the front-runners. But in 2010 there is more parity between teams in terms of engine and tyre performance, meaning any difference in lap times is more directly linked to failings with the chassis. Kovalainen admitted that Lotus’ “biggest problem” is currently with the car’s aerodynamics, before adding he had “never gone into a season with less testing”.

Team boss Tony Fernandes is more optimistic about the team’s preparations and thinks it has made significant progress since its debut just over two weeks ago.”We reckon we will be three-and-a-half seconds off the fastest car [in Bahrain], an improvement of five seconds from Jerez,” he said. “We keep chipping away.”

Lotus is hoping to be the best of the newcomers this season and has focussed on reliability over performance for the opening rounds. It will bring a major upgrade to the Spanish Grand Prix in May, which technical director Mike Gascoyne is hoping will close the gap to the midfield.

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