Lotus targets further improvement in Monza

Heikki Kovalainen is confident of making it into Q2 again © Sutton Images

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Following on from a highly encouraging Belgian Grand Prix that saw both drivers finish the race, Team Lotus is targeting another strong race in Monza.

An impressive performance from Heikki Kovalainen saw him make it through to Q2 in Spa and the Finn is hoping to build on his performance in Italy.

"Monza is another different challenge for us and it'll be good going there on the back of such a strong weekend in Spa," said Kovalainen. "It has different downforce requirements to most of the rest of the tracks we race on, but we'll go there with the same sort of aggressive strategy we used well in Spa to put us into Q2."

Team boss Tony Fernandes is also hopeful that an intelligent race strategy and a little bit of luck will pay dividends during the Italian Grand Prix weekend.

"Monza gives us another chance to keep edging towards the teams ahead before we go back to the Far East and what is really our third home race in Singapore," said Fernandes.

"This weekend we are not going to be challenging the teams ahead quite yet in outright pace, but clever use of strategy and very strong drives from both Heikki [Kovalainen] and Jarno [Trulli] give us a chance to hold our own in the race, so the target for Monza has to be to maintain the reliability record established in Spa and look for another two car finish at the chequered flag, as high as we can reasonably hope.

"That is a realistic target, and that is the approach we bring to everything related to our team. The plans for the future development of the team, and the group it sits in, are taking shape exactly as we want them to and we are setting ourselves reasonable goals that can be achieved through hard work, innovation and a little bit of luck."

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