Fauzy to drive Lotus at Silverstone

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Lotus reserve driver Fairuz Fauzy will drive in the first practice session at this weekend’s British Grand Prix.

Fauzy will also get behind the wheel of a T127 in practice in Hungary, Singapore and Abu Dhabi later this year.

He has driven in practice once this year, in his home event in Malaysia.

Lotus say Fauzy’s track time will be split evenly between Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli’s cars. He drove Kovalainen’s car in Sepang.

Read more: Fairuz Fauzy biography

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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14 comments on “Fauzy to drive Lotus at Silverstone”

  1. … How can they evenly split him between the two cars if he’s doing five sessions?

    1. Split evenly from now on, excluding Malaysia, I should imagine. So at season’s end, Heikki will be the regular driver who has been most ‘disadvantaged’, by one session.

  2. “Lotus say Fauzy’s track time will be split evenly”

    A: The sessions not equal in length?

    1. By that I meant maybe he doesn’t do all of a session.
      More likely its a mistake or they split one in half between taking Heikki and Jarno.

  3. That was not required.Lotus is improving day by day so they really needed to have both their full time drivers to stay in the car as much as possible.

    1. But they should also look at developing a driver. Trulli dosnt look like he will be around for much longer..

      1. Nail.The.There.Head.On.Hit.You.The.

        1. I was going to post this comment:

          Why develop a new driver when you have a car so far behind? Surely use the experienced drivers and their knowhow to develop a better car, then give a better car to a talented young driver.

          A new young driver who’s never been in F1 before, is not the best knowledge base to get feedback on the car. With less track time, he’s going to spend many races getting familiar with what he wants in a car. The older drivers know this already, and will save Lotus a lot of time and, as a result money.

          I’d like to submit, that part of the reason Lotus are doing so well, is because of the experience with in the whole team, including the drivers.

          Then I realised that I’m a bit drunk and misread your comment, so I’d wasted 2 minutes of my life.. however, I still think it holds some value, so I’m leaving it here in it’s full glory :P

      2. It’s always good to get another drivers perspective on car set up, while different drivers of course like to set up differently they can get used to possible flaws in the cars an not notice them

        A third driver can point these out and the race driver can test the changes.

  4. what’s the point? Is he actually going to get a race seat soon? I don’t think so.

    1. then what’s the point di resta, klien doing in first friday practice all this while?

      ;)

    2. The point is that Lotus is backed (indirectly, through Proton) by the Malaysian government and questions are (I understand) occasionally asked in the Malaysian Parliament about what good this is doing for Malaysia, so putting Fauzy in the car as and when Lotus can is a good way to keep the backers happy – especially if, as is widely speculated, Lotus are unlikely to relocate away from Hingham for some years yet.

      1. I look this in a point of sport not politic.
        If that dude deserve to go out there on first friday practice; then let him have his time on the track on friday practice. that’s the only way the reserve driver can show what his got.

        If you watch 3rd video from F1 Fan Forum, Di resta said reserve driver deserve some time on the track and with in season testing ban, friday practice is the only time reserve driver can go out on track;

        “reserve driver need to do some testing on track to bump old guy out” that what di resta said if i’m not mistaken

        1. Di Resta is clearly massivley talented an definatley going to get an F1 drive soon, if Force India decide to race him this F1 practice can only help.

          Fauzy however, doesn’t have a great reputation for speed but I’m sure sponsers or something comes into it. Gascoyne and Fernandes seem quite pragmatic so they wouldn’t just waste the car on him, although as I said before different perspectives on set up are always helpful.

          Klien has good experiance, he’ll be invaluable on set up and ways to improve the car, especially in a team that’s feilded 2 rookies.

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