Heikki Kovalainen believes Team Lotus is in a strong position ahead of Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix, with the squad comfortably quicker than its main rivals and a much closer 1.113 seconds in arrears of 18th place man Vitaly Petrov in qualifying. The Finn will start the race from 19th, one position ahead of team-mate Jarno Trulli.
"I’m pretty pleased with that," said Kovalainen. "I got held up on my second run but still managed to get within a second of the car ahead and I think I got close to getting the most out of the car I could. We definitely improved in FP3 and the wear rates weren’t too bad so I think we’re in good shape for tomorrow.
"It’s a long race, and one where the safety car will probably play a role in how it all ends up, so the aim for Sunday is clear - make sure we get both cars home to the end and put ourselves in a position to take advantage of what happens ahead."
Trulli was left slightly frustrated despite moving to within a tenth of Kovalainen in qualifying, admitting that he is still unhappy with the handling of his car.
"Honestly I’ve struggled with the car all day and even though I managed to get much closer to Heikki in qualifying I’m still not all that happy with where we are.
"The guys in the garage have been working really hard all weekend to fix one or two problems we’ve had, and I want to thank them for getting the car to the point where I could get that quick laptime out of it, but now it’s about getting to the end of the race tomorrow in one piece."
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:44.381 | 12 |
| 2. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:44.732 | 14 |
| 3. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:44.804 | 14 |
| 4. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:44.809 | 12 |
| 5. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:44.874 | 13 |
| 6. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:45.800 | 14 |
| 7. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | 01:46.013 | 11 |
| 8. | M. Schumacher | Mercedes | no time | 11 |
| 9. | A. Sutil | Force India | no time | 14 |
| 10. | P. di Resta | Force India | no time | 14 |
| Full results | ||||
| Jarno Trulli | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Jarno Trulli photos | |||
| Heikki Kovalainen | |||
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| More Heikki Kovalainen photos | |||
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