Jarno Trulli completed just six laps this morning for Team Lotus after a gearbox change and a water leak greatly limited his track time.
However, Day Three of the final pre-season test was partly rescued for the team this afternoon after Heikki Kovalainen managed 40 laps of the Circuit de Catalunya.
“A difficult morning for Jarno with the gearbox change,” said chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne. “We had put a new ‘box on overnight but saw a problem with it this morning so had to change it during the session.
“Unfortunately a water leak then meant that Jarno was not able to complete any real running, but this afternoon we made some real progress with Heikki. He was able to work through a program on the tyre options and the blown diffuser so after a tricky morning it was a very positive end to the day.”
Trulli was understandably despondent after his difficult morning, but is still looking forward to the opening race of the season: “Obviously it’s a bit frustrating that the gearbox issue cut short my time on track this morning, but we’ve now got some time back in the factory to fix the problems so I’m looking forward to heading to Australia and begin the fight with the midfield teams.”
Kovalainen on the other hand, was much happier with his day, and believes that pre-season preparations are coming along nicely. “That was a pretty good afternoon for me,” said the Finn. “Jarno had some problems this morning with one of those things that’s hard to predict but the team managed to get it sorted for the afternoon and we were able to work through the whole plan. I can feel it coming together well – we’ll sort out the reliability and I think we are just where we want to be.”
