Kovalainen pins hopes on Spain upgrade

Kovalainen qualified in 18th position, around half a second behind his closest rival and less than two seconds off the fastest time in Q1.

With the team introducing a significant upgrade package in Spain in two weeks, Kovalainen is hoping Lotus will be able to reduce the gap even more then.

"I'm happy with that. We only have to find a little bit more to join the fight in Q2 but today we had a good strategy and got everything that we could from the tyres," said the Finn.

"I'm pleased with my own performance - the quick lap was right on the money with no mistakes so it's a good feeling to keep edging closer.

"We're all looking forward to the Barcelona upgrade package where hopefully that will deliver a greater performance gain compared to what the opposition will bring but we're nearly there so for now it's just about keeping up the effort and putting in another strong performance tomorrow."

Team-mate Jarno Trulli was also pleased with his day despite being hindered by a problem with his rear wing on his way to 19th position.

"I'm pretty much satisfied with my run today," he said. "Unfortunately I had a DRS issue which obviously costs a lot of time on a circuit like this but I think that all round we did as good a job as we could today.

"Our race pace definitely gives us a chance to fight with the cars ahead so hopefully we can sort out the DRS issue and replicate what we did in the race in China."