Heikki Kovalainen says ‘a lot of pace’ yet to come from Caterham – Formula 1 news
Caterham driver Heikki Kovalainen says that there is ‘a lot of pace’ yet to come from the team while he admits that the best lap time was set on low fuel during the second day of the third pre-season test held at Circuit de Catalunya, Barcelona.
Kovalainen completed 104 laps during the second day of the third test and set the fifth fastest lap of 1 minute 23.828 seconds. However, he made his test run with the lowest fuel, the team had used in the car for testing until now but still he could not
be able to qualify full simulation.
“It was lower than what we've been running all winter, but it's still not a qualy run as in a one-lap run, one-lap fuel,” Kovalainen said. “So it's also the first time that I've run the supersoft tyre, I haven't run one all winter. I think overall, apart
from that there's been some good progress ... we still need to work on the setup of the car to find more performance there, so another day like this (Friday) would be good.”
Kovalainen expressed that he was very delighted with the performance of CT01 during the test run. Furthermore, he said that the setup changes which had been done to the car proved out to be great and the team were heading in the right direction.
Kovalainen said that in the long run he felt significant improvements in the car as compared to the qualifying run.
Moreover, the turning of the car required sharpness on new soft tyres but it was more balanced during the long run and he said that the front of the car seemed lazy.
In addition, he said that after facing problems during the second test the team did not have the time to go for a complete qualifying lap as the team knew what the car could do on low fuel.
However, he said that the team knew what was required to be done and now the focus had been shifted to improve the performance of the car and prepare it for the forthcoming season starting at Melbourne, Australia on March 18, 2012.
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