Rubens Barrichello impressed by Team Lotus car upgrades at final pre-season test session – Formula 1
Team Williams’ Rubens Barrichello has recently stated that he is impressed by Team Lotus as they have improved a lot after applying some upgrades during the final pre-season test session in Barcelona this past week.
Team Lotus, Virgin Racing Team and Hispania Racing Team (HRT) became a part of Formula 1 in 2010 but unfortunately, neither of the three new teams was able to secure a single point. However, it is expected that they are going to perform much better this
year as compared to their 2010 run as the new regulations are going to suit their respective new cars.
However in 2010, Team Lotus gave the best statistical performance out of the three new teams. It is expected that they are going to be the best of the rest once again in the 2011 Formula 1 season especially after the pre-season test session’s results but
since HRT has not tested its new car ‘F111’ yet, only Lotus and Virgin can be judged as a result.
“Lotus was four seconds behind Red Bull in 2010. They seem to have improved two seconds for this year,” Barrichello told the media.
According to the pre-season test session’s results, Barrichello believes that Team Lotus will have a high chance of making it to the second round of qualifying during the qualifying sessions at most of the venues. However, Virgin Racing Team might have to
rethink its strategy as he believes that they might not even qualify at all for some of the races.
“With the return of the 107 per cent rule, it is possible that a few times they will not qualify. At the moment they seem slow,” he said.
Nevertheless, Rubens’ team Williams revealed recently that they are going to use the Kinetic Energy Recover System in their new car for the season opening race that is expected to take place in Australia on March 27, 2011 despite the fact that his team was
facing some major problems while testing their new car with the system.
On the other hand, Lotus’ chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne stated that Team Lotus are unlikely to ever use KERS in their new car, T128.
“We will discuss it with Renault, but for a small team like us, KERS is a very high cost. We would need to change the chassis significantly, as at the moment there is no room for KERS,” Gascoyne told the media.
It is going to be interesting to see how Lotus performs at the season opening race in Australia though since that is going to be the first time that each team pushes its respective cars to the limits.
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