Team Lotus have been performing well this season. They can't fight for the points but are reasonably close to the rest of the field that it could be possible on the right day. Last race wasn't that day. Trulli finished 17th and Heikki Kovalainen retired. Mike Gascoyne is still optimistic and hopes to have learned lessons from their Canadian Grand Prix "We learnt a number of important lessons in Canada and that weekend is now behind us and we are straight on to Valencia."

"Before leaving North America I was lucky enough to go GE's General Research Centre to be shown around, just after Tony had announced our partnership with them. From an engineering perspective the whole operation is breathtaking."

Looking forward to this weekend's race Gascoyne says that the tyre will play an important role: "Now it is back to Spain and the European Grand Prix. In terms of downforce levels Valencia is unlike most of the other tracks in the calendar - we run more wing than in Canada for example, but less than a number of the other tracks like Barcelona or Turkey. The prime tyre here is the medium which we are racing for the first time this season. We ran it in on Friday in Canada and it behaved pretty well but as degradation can be reasonably high on Fridays in Valencia, due to the amount of dust and sand on track, we will be looking closely at how it performs and how we can take advantage of the time difference between the primes and the options on Saturday and Sunday."

Last year the team didn't do well in Valencia. Jarno Trulli finished 21st and last, Heikki Kovalainen retired.