Trulli's old, he's not the guy who used to give Alonso a run for his money anymore. Lotus, and so do I, think that Trulli's losing his fire, and he's unable to work properly with the car's power steering at the moment. We won't know if Karun is better unless he stays in the car for longer, but his qualifying pace wasn't bad, just a little off Heikki, little more than the same distance that Jarno might have been. In the race though, Karun spun a few times, lost his nose once, and did a 3 stopper. Normally, the backmarkers will do 1 or 2 stoppers. All those problems added up are what made him finish 70 seconds off of Ricciardo.
I also don't think that Lotus need so much experience anymore. The team are now on steady ground. Big budget, and decent designers and engineers to push the team forward. And Heikki is enough to keep them running, they probably want to put a youngster in to get a more interesting lineup.
We don't know if Karun is better? Better than what? Better than Trulli? I can say with some certainty that Karun is not better than Trulli. Can Karun display some better ability? Possibly, but his past career and the speed he has shown don't show a huge amount of potential for improvement. I think at best Karun could be a solid driver who would finish GPs but I don't think he would ever be fast enough to even get close to the podium in a top car. But the main point here is that having Trulli in the seat gives Lotus a mistake-free race as well as being faster than Karun, even if Karun hadn't made mistakes he would have been fighting the Virgins in a car which has pretty much always been 1 second ahead of them...
I thought this race was a pretty clear indication Lotus do need experience still, as they have just let a young-gun have a go and he finished dead last..whereas their experienced driver fought up in 15th for much of the race, well ahead of their rivals Virgin and HRT. The constructors is worth a lot of money even at the bottom end of the grid, and those 15ths, 16ths, etc count at the end of the year.
Having Kovalainen and Trulli ensures both Lotus cars remain ahead of Virgin and HRT so that they can capitalise on mixed races and always have the best finishing positions - securing 10th place.
Are you reading what you have typed? I mean, you're backing up what I am saying that Karun's race was ruined by his own mistakes. If he hadn't made those mistakes he might have been ahead or at least a lot closer to the HRTs and Virgins. But he wasn't, due to his own mistakes. Again, mistakes, not bad luck, just like I said with Schumacher - how can genuine driving errors be considered bad luck?
There is quite simply one answer to this, Schumacher is sponsorship gold. Or at least he was last season, I expect by now the sponsors aren't so interested in old Schumi anymore. I expect that to some extent Schumacher was a pay driver. But also somebody to help with development of the car. Remember, Mercedes were trying to get hold of Vettel as their number one, I don't think Schumacher was truly their long term plan and if he was, they're starting to see sense.
Well yeah, but that wears a bit thin when he tarnishes his own legacy by becoming the circus clown constantly taking front wings off and hitting other drivers. Although there is always the benefits of negative publicity too and the name will always be a household one, is it all worth it?
I don't see the point of it all really, to me if I was a team owner, I would want Michael Schumacher in the car because of his 7xWDC...I would easily find much more consistent and cleaner drivers with potential to improve if I was happy to take a driver who can start 10th and finish 8th. Some people are saying that if Schumacher was a new driver, he would be praised for his constant pushing for results even after mistakes, etc, but that in itself points out the problem to me - he isn't a new driver, he is Michael Schumacher, if he wasn't hired because he is a world champion then why not actually hire a new driver?
It kind of reminds of Michael Andretti in 1993 for some reason. Sure, with more time Andretti would have improved. But he was hired to be great immediately, if he couldn't make the mark quickly, why bother? Lets give Mika Hakkinen a try as he has shown humoungous amounts of potential talent....
I think Nico Hulkenburg should be given a try, his potential is huge. Sutil, Glock and Heidfeld have somewhat shown their potential though all 3 have earned such a seat. I think Hulk has much more to prove still though.
An odd interpretation of luck, eh? There is an element of making your own luck, and Schumacher rarely does when he keeps making these very basic errors. Bad luck would be reliability issues or losing out on strategy with the weather or safety cars. Taking your front wing off and spinning in pretty much every race isn't bad luck, its bad driving. 
