{"id":892,"date":"2010-03-14T10:11:05","date_gmt":"2010-03-14T18:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/?p=892"},"modified":"2010-03-14T10:11:05","modified_gmt":"2010-03-14T18:11:05","slug":"a-dream-start-for-lotus-racing-in-bahrain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/2010\/03\/14\/a-dream-start-for-lotus-racing-in-bahrain\/","title":{"rendered":"A dream start for Lotus Racing in Bahrain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lotus<\/a><\/p>\n

Six months of very hard work finally came to as successful a conclusion as the team could have hoped for on Sunday afternoon in Bahrain, with both Lotus Racing cars finishing the race, Heikki in 15th and Jarno in 17th (provisional positions) in the opening round of the 2010 Formula One\u2122 World Championship.<\/p>\n

\"Lotus<\/a><\/p>\n

Jarno Trulli (Lotus Racing chassis T127\/3) \u201cI made a good start and avoided the accident at the second corner but found myself in the gravel so at this stage I was nearly last, but then I started picking up pace and catching the people in front. The car was understeering quite a lot and I couldn\u2019t really predict the balance so at the pitstop the team, who did a really good job, changed the front wing setting and I started pushing again and putting in some good laps. At the end of the race I had a hydraulic problem so I just had to get it to the end of the race. I\u2019m really happy and proud for the team because in six months every single target we have fixed we have met so it\u2019s really good, and, as Tony said, one day Lotus will win and I hope to be here when we do.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Lotus<\/a><\/p>\n

Heikki Kovalainen (Lotus Racing chassis T127\/1) \u201cIt was a good race for our team – to get both cars to the finish is a great achievement. My car didn\u2019t have a single problem, I know Jarno did and managed to nurse his car to the end, but the primary goal was to get both cars to the end and we achieved that. So far the team has reached every goal we set ourselves so that is fantastic. In terms of my race, I had a good start and was battling with a lot of guys we didn\u2019t think we\u2019d be fighting with. My tyres were fine, and the pitstop was good, but I lost a bit of time whilst letting cars past, and we\u2019ll look at the strategy for Australia to work around that better. I really enjoyed driving the car, it felt really good and it was good to push. Everybody in the team should be really happy but now the honeymoon is over and we need to start working on better results.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lotus<\/a><\/p>\n

Chief Technical Officer Mike Gascoyne said \u201cI\u2019m very very proud of the whole team. Everyone here, and back in Hingham. Firstly I have to say thank you to both drivers. They drove great races \u2013 Jarno struggling early on but when he changed to the soft tyre he was much more competitive. Apologies to Heikki because he may have suffered from the strategy, and apologies to Jarno because he had a hydraulics problem and he had to slow down to get the car to the finish, but overall a great result.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lotus<\/a><\/p>\n

Happiest man of all was Team Principal who said \u201cI\u2019m completely over the moon! I cannot describe the feeling. Six months of work and to have both cars finish is just unbelievable. We\u2019re thrilled, we\u2019re happy and the spirit in the team is fantastic. I\u2019m really proud of Jarno and of Heikki and everyone here. It\u2019s a great start and better than I could have dreamt of. We wanted to finish the race and to do so ahead of established teams is fantastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom here we keep going. Before the race Clive Chapman gave me Colin Chapman\u2019s old Lotus cap and said \u2018when you win the first race you\u2019ll be the man to throw this up in the air like my Dad used to.\u2019 That meant a lot to me, it was a wonderful gesture and it\u2019s like handing over the mantle of one of motor racing\u2019s great dynasties\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Lotus<\/a><\/p>\n

Visitors to the Lotus Racing garage before the race included FIA President Jean Todt and Michelle Yeoh, but the day began with Tony Fernandes giving the team a stirring speech to thank everyone for the hard work so far, and lay out the challenge ahead, saying \u201cThe last six months have shown that if you dream you can achieve, but now it\u2019s not about being the best of the new teams, it\u2019s about making a serious challenge for the very top.\u201d With a start like this, who could blame him for pushing for something truly amazing.<\/p>\n

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

Six months of very hard work finally came to as successful a conclusion as the team could have hoped for on Sunday afternoon in Bahrain, with both Lotus Racing cars finishing the race, Heikki in 15th and Jarno in 17th (provisional positions) in the opening round of the 2010 Formula One\u2122 World Championship. Jarno Trulli … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A dream start for Lotus Racing in Bahrain”<\/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":[12,19,20,1],"tags":[32,75,200,213,251,284,334,339,366,542],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqLPi-eo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892"}],"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=892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/892\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gglotus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}