Kovy Welcomes Pressure Of Lotus Name

[Mark H]

Heikki Kovalainen admits that the reborn Lotus team will be carrying a heavier weight of expectation this season than the other three new Formula 1 outfits given the marque’s illustrious history in the sport.

 

Lotus F1 Racing is in reality a brand new team launched by Malaysian aviation tycoon Tony Fernandes and being built from scratch by experienced F1 technical director Mike Gascoyne – but backing from the Malaysian national carmaker Proton, which owns Lotus, enables it to use the evocative British name, which has been absent from F1 since the original team folded in 1994.

 

Kovalainen acknowledges this will inevitably bring added pressure, but is confident the new-style Lotus team can do justice to its fabled forebear.

 

“Of course the team will have a lot to do to keep the name going like it has gone in the past,” he said in an interview with itv.com/f1.

 

“Obviously the first year will be tough for us, especially at the beginning as we are quite late [starting], but I think we have all the potential to become successful like Lotus has been in the past and we are working towards that.

 

“That’s the challenge for us.”

 

Kovalainen welcomes the high expectations because he thinks they will spur the team to improve more quickly and begin to deliver results during its rookie campaign.

 

“I’m sure everybody who is involved in the project, Tony and everybody, knows that people will want respectable results already in the first year.

 

“Obviously that doesn’t mean we have to be winning races – that’s not really realistic – but people need to see we have exceeded the expectations at least, we have made clear progress.

 

“That’s what we have to do and that’s what puts the pressure on the team.

 

“And I think that’s good because it will push everybody to work harder and work even more and I think that we have a lot of people here that are capable of doing a very good job in Formula 1.”

 

Kovalainen says he can’t gauge what level of results Lotus should be aiming for until it tests its first car alongside other teams, which it plans to do for the first time at Jerez from 17 February.

 

But the Finn believes it is essential that the team sets itself firm targets once it has a read on the car’s competitiveness.

 

“Rather than just putting the mileage on the car I think we need to set a decent goal, a more realistic target after a couple of tests and just before the first race,” he said.

 

“If we just go out there and do the races as tests it’s very easy for everybody to relax and not to be 100% motivated.”

 

He added: “I’d like to be able to fight for points towards the end of the season but that might be totally unrealistic if the car is nowhere at the beginning – it’s just so hard to say.

 

“But I think the whole point is that we have to have some kind of target that we know we can achieve rather than just go out and have fun.

 

“If we know that we can be 15th then we need try to be 15th or better. If we can only be 20th then we have to at least be there.

 

“We have to have some target to work towards.”

 

Kovalainen says the team’s initial objective must be to beat the other new teams on the 2010 grid.

 

“At the moment I can’t tell really anything as I don’t know where our car will be compared to the performance of the other teams,” he said.

 

“If the car is proving to be reasonably quick then I think we should raise the bar, but apart from that I think we should certainly target being ahead of the other new teams – that is the first step for us.

 

“But also as we have the Lotus name in our car I think we fairly quickly need to make improvements to the car.”

 

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