Lotus hails 'excellent' first day of work

Malaysian Fairuz Fauzy was the man in charge of driving the car in its first public outing following a brief shakedown at Silverstone last week.

On a good day for the team, Fauzy completed 76 laps despite having to drive without power steering due to a problem with one of the suppliers of the team.

Gascoyne was delighted with Lotus's first outing and praised Fauzy for the work done.

"It's been an excellent day for the whole team," said Gascoyne. "Firstly I want to say a big thank you to Fairuz who did an excellent job today with the first proper day of running. With so much going on, such as doing systems checks, it can be a pretty disjointed day for the driver.

"When you add into that the changeable conditions, and also the fact we were running without power steering today, it could have been a tricky day for Fairuz but he didn't put a foot wrong so well done to him and a big thank you.

"With the car we had no major reliability issues - a few niggles with overheating which were quickly solved and then the car ran pretty faultlessly. The power steering issue will be fixed for tomorrow so all in all a very successful first day and a busy evening ahead preparing the car for tomorrow."

Fauzy, who used the mileage to complete the 300 kms needed to gain his superlicence, was also elated after his first day of work.

"First of all I want to thank the team," he said. "To arrive here and complete 76 laps is fantastic. It was a big challenge, both to complete the 300kms I need for the superlicence, and with no power steering it was difficult to drive in the dry, not so bad in the wet, so I was driving a bit conservatively but I am just very pleased."

Fauzy will be replaced by Heikki Kovalainen for tomorrow's session.