It was a hard stuck story for Hingham's Formula One outfit Team Lotus as Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen reflected on a tough Canadian Grand Prix.

While free practice and qualifying had gone perfectly fine for the Norfolk marque, Sunday's rain-affected race proved much more of a challenge.

Finn Kovalainen, who qualified just behind his team-mate, made a wrong call when coming into the pits for his first stop – making Trulli's scheduled stop problematic and sending both T128's to the back of the field.

Lap 19 saw Kovalainen's drive shaft break, ending his race, while Trulli had to nurse his car home after a mechanical failure all but finished his weekend.

With improved performances from fellow 2010 new boys Virgin and Hispania, Kovalainen finds himself behind Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jerome d'Ambrosio in the drivers' standings – with Trulli leading F1's 'third tier'. Team Lotus remain in front of their closest rivals in the constructors' championship – although the target was always further up the grid for 2011.

'That was a very eventful race,' said Trulli. 'It started well but I struggled all afternoon with the brakes and even though I was able to get them up to temperature I think they glazed after the first safety car and I couldn't recover them.

'After the race restarted I had the same issue with the brakes but as the track dried they started coming back and I was able to start pulling away from our direct competitors.

Unfortunately after the stop to dry tyres I had something moving around in the cockpit so I came back in again for the team to investigate it. They couldn't fix it so I went back out and did as well as I could to bring the car home to the end.'

Kovalainen added: 'Unfortunately my race came to an end with a drive shaft failure. When we restarted I lost drive pretty much immediately and had to retire which is obviously a disappointing end to the weekend.

'It's just one of those things, nothing I could do about it so hopefully we'll have better luck in Valencia and keep pushing on.'

The European Grand Prix, around the streets of Valencia, takes place on Sunday, June 26.