Comfortable Kovalainen to stay at Lotus

Heikki Kovalainen has admitted he feels more comfortable at Lotus than he did in the last two seasons with McLaren.

The Finn took a big backwards step down the grid with the new Malaysian backed team in 2010, but he told Holland's formule1.nl magazine that he is not complaining.

"Here at Lotus everything feels better," said the 28-year-old, who in 2008 and 2009 was Lewis Hamilton's teammate.

Kovalainen left McLaren late last year declaring that he was not always treated equally by the famous British team.

"I have much more of a feeling that I have things under control now compared to when I was at McLaren," he explained.

"At virtually every race I am 100 per cent sure what setup I need, and the engineers understand me and believe in me," added Kovalainen.

He would not go into detail about his misgivings with McLaren.

"I don't like to complain, but if I knew then what I know now, I would have done a number of things differently," said the winner of the 2008 Hungarian GP.

It is clear that Lotus will field an unchanged driver lineup next year, with Kovalainen again alongside fellow grand prix winner Jarno Trulli.

Technical boss Mike Gascoyne said Lotus decided to pay for two experienced drivers in the quest to unlock the commercial benefits of finishing the 2010 championship in tenth place.

"If there is a crazy race with a big start crash with rain or something," he said, "then Heikki and Jarno are more likely to score than inexperienced, young drivers," he said.

Source: F1 Complete

Lotus aim for a second in Spain

Lotus are confident their Spanish upgrades will be worth a full second a lap around the Barcelona circuit.

Although one of the better of this year's newcomers, Lotus are still roughly four to five seconds a lap slower than the established frontrunners.

The team, though, is heading to Spain armed with several upgrades for their T127, which Heikki Kovalainen reckons could give them a significant improvement in pace.

"We hope to get a time gain of more than a second," he told Auto Moto und Sport. "But then perhaps we have more space in which to improve."

Kovalainen's belief in that second is echoed by tech boss Mike Gascoyne.

"The Barcelona package has been in the wind tunnel for six months," he said. "The rear will be narrower, the sidepod entries more extreme, the wheel base long.

"Our car will be faster by at least one second."

Source: Planet-F1