Lotus Looking To Build On Strong Start To 2011 Izod Indycar Series Sea

[Mark H]

Lotus will be looking to continue its strong start to the 2011 IZOD IndyCar Series season this weekend at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama presented by Legacy, April 8-10, at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama.

KVRT – Lotus produced two top five finishes in the season opening Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg with Tony Kanaan, No. 82 GEICO – KV Racing Technology – Lotus, placing third and Takuma Sato, No. 5 KV Racing Technology – Lotus, finishing fifth. E. J. Viso, No. 59 PDVSA – KV Racing Technology – Lotus, suffered a puncture to a tire during the race, but never-the-less battled to the end finishing 19th. This was the first time that KV Racing Technology – Lotus placed two cars in the top-five in an IndyCar Series event.

Kanaan’s result in St. Petersburg is even more remarkable considering both he and his crew joined the team just six days before the race. The 36-year-old native of Brazil and 2004 IndyCar Series Champion, is entering his 14th season of major U. S. based open–wheel competition and 10th in the IndyCar Series. The podium finish in St. Pete was his 50th in 133 IndyCar starts. A perennial championship contender, Kanaan will be making his second start on the 2.38-mile, 17-turn Barber permanent road circuit. Last year, he started eighth and finished eighth.

“Obviously, I missed the off-season testing at Barber, but the team had a strong test with Taku and E. J. so I think we’re going to be good,” Kanaan said. “Barber Motorsports Park is a very nice and beautiful facility where the fans show up in massive numbers, which is great for our series. It’s a very difficult track to pass, but I’m hoping to have a weekend as good as I had in St. Petersburg.”

Sato is coming off the best finish of his 18-race IndyCar career (fifth in St. Pete). The 34-year-old Formula 1 veteran is always extremely competitive on permanent road circuits. Last year, he made the Firestone Fast Six, the final round of road/street course qualifying, three times all on permanent road circuits including qualifying sixth at Barber (fifth at Watkins Glen and season high third at Mid-Ohio).

“I am really looking forward to going back to Barber,” Sato said. “The circuit is really challenging and a beautiful setup with flowing corners. Last year, unfortunately I had a mechanical problem in the early part of the race, but my pace was looking promising so I expect we can repeat that again and have a strong race. Although we found a lot of work to be done after the pre-season open test, it was still a great session to understand many things and now having a good result at the opening race, I believe we can carry forward some good momentum. It is quite exciting.”

Viso, 25, in his fourth IndyCar season, also competed at Barber last year starting 10th and finishing 16th. Although this is just the second race at Barber, the talented and determined Venezuelan has tested here three times in the last two years.

“We raced at Barber for the first time last year, so it is not totally new,” Viso said. “The KVRT-Lotus team has also done some miles on it twice this year for testing and I felt we made good progress, which hopefully we will see this weekend. It is a tough track to overtake on, so qualifying will play a big and important part for the race. I had a tough weekend at St. Petersburg two weeks ago, but the overall team had a good start. I feel proud to be a part of this team and I think all the hard work we put in over the winter, showed on track.”

Lotus Director of Motorsport Claudio Berro said, “We were delighted at the result in St. Petersburg. To have two cars in the top five at the first race has given KVRT – Lotus an excellent start to the Championship. I stated before St. Petersburg that I believed the ingredients were in place to enable us to progress and this result was the product of a great team effort. However, the season is a long one and we will not rest on our laurels. Undoubtedly this result has given us even more confidence, but we still have a lot of work to do to fulfill our ambition to become one of the top three teams in the series. It was a stunning debut by Tony Kanaan in Lotus colors, but no surprise as he has a great pedigree and a lot of experience. We are delighted that all the hard work put in by Taku in his debut season last year yielded a great result in St. Petersburg. I know he has what it takes to succeed and build upon that result. It was a disappointing race for E.J., but he is a strong character with a desire to succeed and I am sure we will see that over the course of the year.”

 

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