Kovalainen: SARD carrying momentum into fresh season

In some unspecified time in the future McLaren, Renault and Lotus System 1 racer Kovalainen posted the fastest time on the second and final day of the first genuine test of the winter, eclipsing the Team Kunimitsu Honda of reigning champion Naoki Yamamoto by 0.096 seconds.

It followed an advanced first day of the test for the Finnish driver and his SARD teammate Yuichi Nakayama, who had been ideal ninth-fastest and eight tenths adrift of the poke-setting Mugen Honda on Saturday.

Kovalainen stated that returning to the place-up the crew had broken-down for final month’s interior most Okayama test on Sunday paid dividends, and is assured that he and Nakayama assuredly is a more constant pressure on the entrance of the SUPER GT self-discipline this season.

“The day before lately I didn’t attain so grand working, when I went out it used to be on vulnerable tyres and we tried some different place-up objects and it didn’t feel expansive,” Kovalainen immediate Motorsport.com on Sunday.

“But lately we went support to our baseline place-up and it felt such as the interior most Okayama test and we had been aggressive over again. It felt love support to long-established. It’s onerous to declare in regards to the cases, and what everybody seems to be doing, however no longer no longer up to it reveals we are there. 

“It’s onerous to declare if we are the truth is the quickest, I mediate no-one is aware of, however it seems to be we are there or thereabouts. So I mediate it goes to come down to puny print and who locations it collectively on the weekend. That’s what TOM’S is so exact at, reacting to concerns as they gain them.

“I don’t mediate we agree with any huge components and the progress we made on the cease of final yr seems to be to agree with carried over to this season. The automotive is constantly performing well with the inappropriate place-up.”

Kovalainen used to be one amongst three Toyota drivers to enact within the tip four on Sunday morning, along with TOM’S pair Ryo Hirakawa and Sho Tsuboi.

The 2016 champion stated he used to be impressed by the evil strength of the GR Supra around a structure knowing of as being better-suited to rival producers Honda and Nissan.

“It’s better no longer to be taught too grand into the cases, however it seems to be love there are several Toyotas towards the entrance, which is positive I mediate,” stated Kovalainen.

#39 DENSO KOBELCO SARD GR Supra

Portray by: Masahide Kamio