Trulli: Lotus closing on midfield teams

2011 Indian Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Jarno Trulli, Lotus, Buddh International Circuit, 2011

Jarno Trulli says Lotus are narrowing the gap to the teams in front of them.

Speaking at the press conference ahead of the Indian Grand Prix weekend Trulli said: “If you look at certain results we don’t really need that jump.

“We just need a little further step as we are in a situation that the car in front is slightly quicker than us and the car behind us are definitely slower than us so we just need a further step to be in the midfield.

“Obviously If you want to think about winning races it is different. You need a further jump but you need to take things step-by-step. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the team was built just two years ago.”

Trulli was substituted for Karun Chandhok at the German Grand Prix and the Indian driver was thought likely to get another run in his home race.

But Chandhok will only drive in the first session. Trulli explained the reason for the decision: “I believe the team is trying to get the best position for the team’s future.

“There is a lot of investment made by the team for the future, for next year, in order to make this step into the midfield and I think none of us wants to lose this opportunity to finish tenth in the championship.

“This, I believe, is the main reason for not giving Karun another chance. But it is not down to me, honestly, to talk about it. This race is the only thing I can think about.”

2011 Indian Grand Prix

    Browse all 2011 Indian Grand Prix articles

    Image © Team Lotus

    Author information

    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...

    Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

    33 comments on “Trulli: Lotus closing on midfield teams”

    1. So Lotus have gone with their strongest driver line up.
      Same can’t be said about HRT. But I guess the money talks……..

      1. @ivz To be fair to HRT, they have nothing to lose. You don’t get any sort of cash prize at the end of the season for finishing 11th or 12th. Plus, they could do with the money.

        I respect both teams decisions on their own merits.

      2. HRT have kept Ricciardo and dropped Liuzzi.

        So thats arguably their stronger driver.

      3. Theres a women eyeing at HRT it would be great to see that HRT making a fantastic step into F1 but even that is unlikecly

    2. “We’re getting closer to the midfield!” seems to be the team’s party line. It’s the new “We’ve got an aggressive car design”.

      Sing another tune, Jarno …

      1. Well they did beat both Saubers in Korea and a Renault at Singapore, so I think his comments are justified.

        1. But the qualities of those cars at those races played a large part in those results. Renault, for instance, went from Q3 in Italy to Q1 (and the bottom of Q2) in Singapore and back to Q3 in Korea. Clearly, the R31 was very poorly-suited to the Marina Bay circuit. So I don’t think Team Fernandes can start popping champagne just yet – they haven’t beaten anyone in a straight fight.

          1. Go and have a look at the fastest laps at the Korean GP. Kovalainen’s fastest lap is faster than a few of those in faster cars. And he compared well to the others, up until P9 I think. And also, for last 10 laps or so, he was lapping the same pace of the cars until P10, if not slightly faster.

            So, there definitely has been some progress. Maybe like 0.050s each race. Put simply, compare their distance to the slowest midfield cars at the start of the season and you will get what I’m trying to say.

          2. If Korea and Singapore weren’t straight fights, I don’t know what is.

            There will always be excuses for why one team finished ahead of another, especially if you have a particular bias against a team.

          3. What you’re saying is that the Lotus was better suited to some tracks than the cars they beat…something similar could be said of Red Bull…

          4. And last season it wouldn’t have mattered about the qualities of those other cars, they’d have beaten Lotus anyway.

            You’re right: it is the ‘party line’ but on this occasion it happens to be true.

        2. To clarify, Kovalainen beat both Saubers by over 13 seconds. Trulli was behind them by nearly 22 seconds.

          Lotus do seem to me making small steps forward, but Trulli really making the most of them as Kovalainen is. I don’t buy the power steering excuse any more either; he was complaining about it in the early part of the season, was replaced by Chandhok for one race, came back and said it was fixed, much better. A few more poor results and the complaints started again.

          1. The word “isn’t” belongs between “Trulli” and “really” in the second paragraph there.

          2. But that means, that if they put the KERS in next year (giving them about 0.2-0.4 seconds/lap) already makes them close up right to the back of the mid field pack.

            I can understand their confidence of getting there for next year.

      2. Yeah, better said “The midfield teams closing on Lotus”.

        1. Well @klaas both you and @prisoner-monkeys have a point.

          However, in F1, does it matter? You need to do a better job then the competition; if you do an average job, but they do worse, you win, while if you do great but they do even better, you lose.

    3. Once they add KERS, they’ll definitely make another step closer to the midfield.

    4. Lotus: Trulli closing on midfield teams.

    5. Futility…sorry can’t get excited about this with three races left in the season. The bottom three teams should give up and take another shot at GP2.

      1. Rubbish! How on Earth do you expect them to make progress into the points in 2 years? I think all the teams are doing well, considering. Virgin made a bold move with their pure CFD approach that ultimately didn’t pay off. Fortunately they have seen the error of their ways and parted company with Nick Wirth.

        1. The reality of the situation is that they are “barely” making it into most races , on the edge of the 107% zone. Haven’t they been the bottom three teams at every single race this season? The ratio of improvement from the start of the season to now is so small that this group of six cars really has done nothing period and I suggest that they are out of their league and really don’t have a place in Formula One. The sponsors can’t be thrilled with the return on their investment and to believe that things will get better enough to start challenging the “mid level” is still kind of out there. I wish them well but sense they won’t exist much longer.

      2. Yea, because F1 has never had teams that remained backmarkers for more than 2 years…

    6. More like, H.Kovalainen is closing on midfield teams

      1. He is clearly doing better than Jarno, Jarno just blames the power sterring, a bad workman always blame his tools.

      2. Heikki’s doing so with his car, Jarno is not so good this year but he can occasionally take the good result.

    7. So much negativity about this team still. I’m excited about the progress they’ve made! I’d rather see more cars duking it out in the midfield than less. Unless some of you prefer tiny fields with only a few cars, why would you diminish them so? More cars = more exciting and interesting racing.

      1. Team Lotus decided the 2010 championship really with Heikki in Valencia.

        1. Wasn’t that Webber who just didn’t pay attention too? And Korea plus some other races not going his way? Not at all the fault of Lotus being around, I’d say.

      2. But I agree with you. Team Lotus is one of my favorite teams, I just love their culture and happy atmosphere. They have good drivers and they have a nice looking design, ontop of that they are actually making strides.

        Finishing ahead of Saubers and just behind a Renault team in Korea is no small feat.

    8. They have shown recently significant steps forward. Beating Sauber in one race and also finishing on the lead lap. It all helps.

    9. I like lotus

    10. Blimey! if some people think Lotus and the other teams should go back GP2, what would they have thought about some teams in 90s?(Simtek, Pacific, Larousse, Forti etc).

      Lotus is definitely making progress. Next year they will have KERS and other teams will lose their blown exhaust thing. These two alone will bring them at least 1-1.5 secs closer to top teams.

      1. Yeah we thought the same thing about them then and now they don’t exist, just some names in the history books.

    Comments are closed.