GreenBkk.com Formula 1 | Lotus expect Saturday improvement

Lotus expect Saturday improvement

Karun Chandhok managed only three corners in the morning session before being caught out by cold tyres © Press Association

Lotus has said it is expecting more from its car on Saturday after it appeared slower than expected during Friday practice for the Australian Grand Prix.

Pre-season testing had seen the team make a big step forward compared to 2010, and it was confident it could bridge the gap to the midfield teams. However, Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli found themselves over a second and a half off the pace in second practice, after Karun Chandhok had crashed in the first session.

"It was one of those days," Kovalainen said. "We had a couple of problems the guys worked hard to resolve, and once we had got through the issues we managed to complete most of the program so we have some good data to work through tonight. There is obviously more pace to come from the car so let's see what happens tomorrow."

Trulli supported his team-mate's optimism, saying: "We'll work tonight on setup options and there are definitely some areas to look at where we can find some pace so I think tomorrow we'll be ok."

Mike Gascoyne also said Lotus understood that the Pirelli tyres were one of the reasons why it had not been able to match the teams ahead of it, and predicted an improvement for qualifying.

"For tomorrow there is a lot more to come from the car," Gascoyne said. "We are clearly not quite where we expected to be in performance terms but we understand the reasons for that - it is proving quite tricky for us to get the best out of the tyres but we will work on that tonight and when we improve I am confident we will move up to where we expect to be in qualifying tomorrow."

Team principal Tony Fernandes said it was a measure of the progress the team had made since its debut season that they were dissatisfied with the way the day had gone.

"It is a real mark of where we are now that the comments from the rest of the team are expressing disappointment with today. As a Team Principal it is actually very pleasing to hear that a performance that a year ago we would have been thrilled about is now being seen as us not meeting our targets, and that shows us all just how far we have already come."

Credit: ESPN F1 (en.espnf1.com)