Trulli delighted with Lotus' potential

The Italian was sixth-fastest at Catalunya today.

"There is still a lot to come out, but so far it's very promising, very good," Trulli told AUTOSPORT.

"I'm happy because it was a long time that we were not so close to the guys at the top. I'm really happy at the moment about the way we are progressing.

"Obviously, I think still a lot more potential in the car. We need to work, we need to get the mileage done, in order to have more confidence in the car and also, set-up wise, we haven't done much so I think we are on the right way but we still have a lot to get out of the car."

Lotus has had some niggling reliability issues, with water leaks proving particularly common. But Trulli said he was actually more encouraged because Lotus was looking so strong even with the interruptions to its running.

"In general it was a difficult day because there we had a lot of stops, a lot of mechanical gremlins, which prevented us doing more laps," he said. "All in all I was very impressed by the car because we managed to do a few runs. Good conditions, good laptimes, so competitive."

He does not think Lotus should be any more concerned about its reliability than any other team.

Asked if he was concerned that testing was not going very smoothly for his team, Trulli replied: "I think we're not the only one down in the paddock. A lot of people are fighting with reliability, but we have to look at our car and definitely we have some stuff to get fixed."