Team Lotus had an encouraging second day of testing in Barcelona as Heikki Kovalainen completed 58 laps and Formula Two driver Ricardo Teixeira also got a chance to test for the team, notching up 26 laps.
Kovalainen finished the day tenth fastest, ahead of Tonio Liuzzi and Timo Glock, the respective Hispania and Virgin drivers for the day.
Teixeira finished the day bottom of the timesheets although Mike Gascoyne, in his summary of the day, was keen to point out some extenuating circumstances.
“That was a much more encouraging day today with 84 laps in total on the car,” said the Team Lotus Chief Technical Officer. “We did have a couple of minor issues with the fuel pressure and a water leak but overall it was a better day for reliability.
“We were able to give Ricardo his first proper run in an F1 car after he had helped us out in Valencia with our filming and he did just the job we wanted him to. He made no mistakes and consistently brought his lap times down on the medium tyre which I think all the teams have said is probably the slowest tyre we have.
“With Heikki we wanted to do a race distance which was slightly hindered by the water leak but overall we definitely made progress today.”
Angolan driver Teixeira voiced his appreciation to the team for giving him the experience. “First I want to thank the whole team for the chance to drive again today,” he said. “It was really good to be able to get some more laps done and everyone worked really hard to make me feel comfortable in and out of the car. I enjoyed myself out on track and by the third run I was able to start pushing a bit more so I think I did what I was asked to today and have taken another step forward in my development as a driver.”
Kovalainen is also happy with how testing is going so far. “I think the positive feeling with this car is growing even though we have had a couple more reliability issues today,” said the Finn. “They’re all teething problems and we are patient while we fix them one by one. We’ll get through this and put the reliability issues behind us as we have experienced people in the right positions who know how to deal with them. We still managed to complete a lot of work today and I can’t wait to get back in the car.”
