Team Lotus’ Heikki Kovalainen wants KERS soon - Formula 1 News
Heikki Kovalainen, the Team Lotus driver stated that although it is fine to begin the 2011 Formula 1 season without ‘KERS’, he believes that the team must develop it soon.
KERS, the Kinetic Energy Recovery System, was first introduced at the Formula 1 tracks in 2009, but due to its high cost, it was banned at the start of the 2010 season. However, now as the caravan of cars gets ready to enter another exciting new season, Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has once again allowed the teams to use it. Many of the teams, especially all the leading teams are expected to use the system for the upcoming campaign.
Tony Fernandes’ Team Lotus announced earlier this year that it will not install the system in its car.
While talking to the media on Monday, the team driver, Kovalainen highlighted his concern over the team’s decision. The Fin stated, "The decision was made to put more resources in the aerodynamics of the car, rather than on KERS. Of course, as a driver I favour KERS, I'd rather have it because in a racing situation it's very important, and it's probably about 0.3 seconds in pure lap-time as well. But the team decided it was more important to get the aerodynamics right, and add the KERS later on."
The team, as it takes its engine from Renault, could have also asked for the kinetic energy recovery system, but it refrained. The management decided to focus its resources on other areas of the car, explaining KERS requires a complex packaging that the team does not want to get into, at the moment.
Although, Kovalainen agrees that currently this decision might serve the team well but believes that in little time, this can start costing a lot many points. He insisted that as the season will unfold, the team must change it plans and prepare against its KERS-equipped rivals.
However, Lotus' chief operating officer, Keith Saunt explained the team position, "If KERS was going to get us from eighth to sixth then we'd have it. But when you look at the weight of it and some of the engineering challenges, I think it's a good decision not to start with it. We might end up with it, who knows? But if we did we've got a lot of experienced people who could turn their hands to it."
Furthermore, when the 29-year-old, Kovalainen was asked about his future plans, he stated that he is optimistic to see a lot of progress in the upcoming season. He explained that this was the first season when Lotus was planning to develop the car all the way through the year.
He said that the upgradations to improve the car’s speed will continue all through the year and the team’s aim is to finish as many races in top ten as they can.
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