Team Lotus secured their highest ever qualifying position on Saturday as Heikki Kovalainen snatched P15 after making it through to Q2.
The Finnish driver hailed the result as a ‘great day’ in Team Lotus short history and is confident that their is much more to come from the new package introduced this weekend.
“This is obviously a great day for Team Lotus and I want to thank everyone here and back at the factory for working so hard to get us to this next step in our story,” he said after qualifying.
“There is a lot more to come from this car and while we have performed really well today we can see that we can keep progressing and taking the fight to the cars around us on merit.
“I think we will find even more time, but for now this is a good feeling and puts us into a good position for the race tomorrow.”
Team owner and principal Tony Fernandes was thrilled with the result, hailing it as a great reward for all the hard work that has been put into the team of late.
“I am so thrilled,” he declared. “It is almost unbelievable but this is a great day for Team Lotus and just reward for the effort that the whole team keeps putting in.
“Heikki did a fantastic lap and the whole team worked together brilliantly to give him the chance to take his car into Q2, and on top of that Jarno managed to put in a great lap in the dying seconds to put himself into 18th place under a great deal of pressure.
“We have a lot of work to do so we are not going to get carried away, but it is important that we enjoy days like this and the feeling that comes with hard work being rewarded with this sort of result.
“As I keep saying, these small steps will keep us moving up the grid, so well done and thank you to everyone.”
