Despite finishing 15th and 17th, it was a very commendable debut for the Lotus F1 team. The team were generally expected to be the best of the newcomers and this proved to be the case at the Sakhir circuit.

The Lotus’ were in fact the only one of the new teams to actually finish the race, with the Virgin and Hispania teams all retired with 17 laps still to race. Heikki Kovalainen set his fastest lap of the race on the very last lap, posting a 2:02.701, still four and a half seconds shy of race winners Alonso’s fastest lap.

Having said this, the field spread was always going to be larger at Bahrain due to the new lengthy nature of the track so the gap is not truly representitive of what it will be at other tracks throughout the season.

Kovalainen produced a very solid display for the Norfolk outfit, even finishing above the established car of Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso.

Jarno Trulli had less of a productive day but was never too far away from the gearbox of his Finnish team-mate. The statistics will say that Trulli finished a lap behind Kovalainen but this was due to a mechanical failure that was losing Trulli upto 30 seconds a lap towards the end of the race. And despite stopping on the lap back to the pits, he still finished the race, which is more than the other newcomers can say.

One very noticeable problem with the Lotus, and indeed the other newcomers, was the distinct lack of grip through the corners. The new cars simply don’t have the aerodynamic grip of the front-runners which is costing them the majority of the time that they’re losing. It was also very visable that the Cosworth engine is simply not powerful enough. Williams were also having this problem as the other engined cars were just powering past them on the straights.

Tony Fernandes and Mike Gascoyne will be thoroughly pleased with the re-debut of the team and I fully expect them to keep pushing on throughout the season. If the car stays as reliable as it seems to be now, I can see the team pushing the lower reaches of the top 10 by the time we reach the business end of the season.

Join me and Victoria on Formula1FanCast.com’s Fantasy League Formula 1 2010. Our league is called Formula1Fancast.com and the league pin is 722. Try and beat us if you can, but be warned we’re good!

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