GreenBkk.com Formula 1 | Lotus keen to bridge midfield gap

Lotus keen to bridge midfield gap

Friday 12th August 2011

Team Lotus's Mike Gascoyne is confident that they can start "picking off" midfield runners by the end of the current Formula One season.

The Norfolk-based outfit set themselves the target of regularly fighting the likes of Toro Rosso, Williams, Force India and Sauber at the start of the year, but results have so far largely failed to match ambitions.

Although Team Lotus have pushed ahead of fellow backmarkers Virgin and HRT who, like them, were new to the grid in 2010, they have yet to score a world championship point.

Gascoyne, the team's chief technical officer, conceded that this is a point of frustration but he is confident that Team Lotus can start to bridge the gap by the end of the year.

"We said we wanted to be racing in the midfield this year, but we're not," Gascoyne told Autosport.

"We're in a sort of no-man's land.

"But we have made a lot of good progress this year and we're two seconds clear of the other new teams, but we're still a second to a second and a half behind the cars ahead of us.

"It would be nice to be actually racing against those guys by the end of the year and actually picking off the odd Williams and Toro Rosso and then start there [next year] and go on. We can do it, I believe."

Gascoyne also revealed that Team Lotus will soon start switching their resources away from the Renault-powered T128 and towards next year's car.

"We're shifting the emphasis of development on to next year's car after the summer break, and that should really kick things off," he said.

"Unlike this year's car, which was almost all-new [compared to] to 2010, next year's car will be a development of this year's; same gearbox, same design team, same engine. We'll be able to concentrate on the parts that make the thing quicker rather than having to do it all again."

Gascoyne also maintains that the decision Team Lotus took not to use KERS this season was the right one.

"The only option would have been to run the Red Bull KERS [this year], and look at the problems they've been having. It was the right decision. The resources it would have taken would have been huge for the net gain," he explained.

Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)