{"id":1183,"date":"2010-05-12T08:17:44","date_gmt":"2010-05-12T16:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/?p=1183"},"modified":"2010-05-12T08:17:44","modified_gmt":"2010-05-12T16:17:44","slug":"monaco-grand-prix-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/2010\/05\/12\/monaco-grand-prix-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Monaco Grand Prix Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s tight, it\u2019s bumpy and it\u2019s a major challenge for the drivers and the teams, but the Monaco Grand Prix<\/a> is one of the world\u2019s greatest sporting events, and Lotus Racing is confident of putting on a very good show at a venue where much of the Lotus history was created. Looking ahead to the weekend\u2019s action are team drivers Jarno Trulli, a Monaco winner in 2004, and Heikki Kovalainen, with Team Manager Graham Watson giving insight into the logistical problems Monaco presents, Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne providing insights from the pitwall, and Team Principal Tony Fernandes discussing his first Monaco race at the head of an F1\u2122 team.<\/p>\n

Graham Watson<\/a>: \u201cThe challenge really begins as soon as the Spanish Grand Prix finishes as we have to pack up everything there and then get it all over to Monaco in time to try and finish setting up by Tuesday night. We have some very experienced truckies and mechanics in the team, who know their way around the confines of the Monaco paddock, and that definitely helps us make sure we can meet all our engineering deadlines, and have the cars ready to go out on track on Thursday morning. We may be one of the new teams, and we definitely don\u2019t have as much equipment yet as some of the more established names, but we\u2019re still able to pack in everything we need to cope with any eventuality over the weekend, including a composite and fabrication workshop on site, which hopefully won\u2019t be needed, but with the nature of Monaco in mind, are necessities here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Gascoyne: “Monaco is obviously a unique place. I enjoy walking around as you realise what a mad place it is to race cars! Engineering wise it\u2019s a major challenge \u2013 it\u2019s very bumpy with lots of slow corners and qualifying is critical as it\u2019s almost impossible to overtake, but I still love it! We should do ok here – we\u2019re good in the slow speed sectors and both our guys are experienced in dealing with the bumps and the traffic, particularly Jarno whose win here was very special, so all in all I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jarno Trulli<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s something very special in Monaco. Whether you\u2019re driving or just walking around, you can almost breathe in how exciting it is. Every driver in the world wants to win here, and I was lucky enough to do so in \u201904, but the whole experience can be tough \u2013 it\u2019s important for us to concentrate on the race, and here you\u2019re under so much pressure it can be difficult to get the time to think, and concentrate on the actual race, but that\u2019s how it is, so we deal with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting in a good lap is also a challenge, but if you can manage the traffic it\u2019s very satisfying. One of the most important parts of the circuit is through the swimming pool \u2013 you change direction at high speed, then brake for the next chicane, which is slow but you still need to get through it quickly. You jump over the kerbs there, not too much or you launch yourself into the wall, but just enough to carry the speed through. That\u2019s why concetration levels are important \u2013 get that right every time and you\u2019re ok \u2013 if not, you\u2019re out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Heikki Kovalainen<\/a>: \u201cI obviously didn\u2019t get the chance in Barcelona to build on the step forward we took with the updates so I\u2019m looking forward to getting back on track and pushing on. It\u2019s so busy on track in Monaco there\u2019s no time to relax, and there are no run off areas so you pay heavily for any little mistakes, but I really like street circuits as they reward good car control, and I think we\u2019ll be pretty good here from how the car felt in Spain. I\u2019ve managed to get a round of golf in with Tony since we left Barcelona, and it\u2019s probably not fair to say how he got on\u2026 but generally it\u2019ll be good to get out on track again and keep up the momentum we\u2019ve had all year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tony Fernandes<\/a>: \u201cI\u2019ve been coming to Monaco ever since AirAsia first came into the sport as a sponsor, and it\u2019s somewhere I love coming to. It\u2019ll be great being here with Lotus Racing \u2013 pretty emotional as Lotus has so much history here. It\u2019ll be a special moment for me and a huge amount of fans to see the green and yellow on track again, so I can\u2019t wait for Thursday and to see the cars out there at what\u2019s almost their third home race!\u201d <\/p>\n

[press release from Lotus Racing]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s tight, it\u2019s bumpy and it\u2019s a major challenge for the drivers and the teams, but the Monaco Grand Prix is one of the world\u2019s greatest sporting events, and Lotus Racing is confident of putting on a very good show at a venue where much of the Lotus history was created. Looking ahead to the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Monaco Grand Prix Preview”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[32,200,213,239,251,284,334,339,366,372,420,542],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqLPi-j5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}