Not my words, but those of one of their drivers. When Heikki Kovalainen was asked by Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat to compare the the new Lotus T127 with the Minardi he drove seven years ago he said "It's difficult because the tyres are so different, but the Lotus is probably missing more aerodynamically than the Minardi cars when you compare them with the top."

After the final test he finished almost five seconds off Hamilton’s pace, which backs up his comments – in 2003 Minardi were also five seconds off the laptimes run by the leaders. Team mate Jarno Trulli reckons it’s not quite so bad, he says they’re four seconds off the pace, and Lotus boss, Tony Fernandes believes they will only be 3.5 behind by the time they get to Bahrain.

It doesn’t look good for the new teams. Virgin was slower than Lotus, USF1 have asked to delay its entry until 2011 and we still haven’t seen the Campos. All a bit rubbish really.

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