Lotus one week ahead of schedule

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KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia’s Lotus F1 Racing Team will be revving up their engine on Feb 5, a week earlier than the scheduled Feb 12 date, to ensure the car is ready for tests at the Bahrain Grand Prix circuit in March.The team’s chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne said as the test date had been confirmed, it would be on track for the first time at the third official tests at two circuits in Jerez, Spain from Feb 17 and Barcelona from Feb 25.

“We are also aiming to run chassis two for the last two days of that Barcelona test.

“This is obviously a great boost for everyone and shows how much hard work has been done since our entry in the World Formula One (F1) Grand Prix (GP) was confirmed on Sept 12,” he said in the team’s official website.

Gascoyne said the current development programme would see a major update at the Spanish Grand Prix in May.

“We are aiming to be ahead of the new teams when we reach Bahrain but we will also like to be close to the midfield teams after the first few races of the season.

“The update we have planned for Spain will see a boost in performance when we reach Barcelona which will give us the chance to start fighting with the slowest of the established teams which, given progress so far, has to be our next goal,” he said.

The 2010 World F1 GP season opening race will start in Bahrain on March 14, followed by Australian GP (March 28) and Malaysian GP (April 4).

Lotus F1 Racing have chosen Italy’s Jarno Trulli, Finland’s Heikki Kovalainen and Malaysia’s Fairuz Fauzy as drivers to spearhead driving their debut season in 2010. — Bernama