Oct.15 (GMM) Mike Gascoyne has refused to comment on reports that Jarno Trulli is at the top of the list for a Lotus seat in 2010, but admitted that appointing experienced drivers is a wise policy for a new team.
In the same media reports, Kuala Lumpur-born rookie Fairuz Fauzy, 27, has been linked with a race seat with the new team, which is aiming to represent Malaysia on an international scale."You have to look at what's best for the team," Briton Gascoyne, who admitted one of his roles is to find a Malaysian successor within a few years, told the New Straits Times newspaper."Ultimately, you'd want to have two experienced drivers. Because as a new team, with two new drivers, you would not know where you are," he added, after the team published images of a scale model of the 2010 car that is ready to enter the wind tunnel.Gascoyne said Fauzy is a top driver but that many of his rivals in the GP2 championship are of the same high standard. The team's first driver line-up will be announced next month."I'm sure that we'll have a Malaysian driving the car at some stage next year in testing, but will he have a race seat? That we have to wait and see," he added.Gascoyne also made a distinction between Lotus, with aims to become a fully Malaysian team, and his former employers Force India, headed by the Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya."If you look at Force India, it's just the old Jordan team with a Force India badge. It doesn't employ any Indians, it's based in Oxfordshire," said the 46-year-old Briton."It's an English racing team with a German engine and an Italian and German driver. There's nothing Indian about that. Just Indian money," he insisted.
