|
Friday, 13 April 2012
Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean took to the
track for the first practice sessions of the
third round of the 2012 Formula 1 World
Championship at Shanghai in cold and damp
conditions.
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director -
Technical programme notes
In FP1 we completed limited running due to
the inclement track conditions.
Both drivers completed the majority of running
in the first session with Pirelli’s intermediate
tyre as we evaluated new parts.
FP2 saw heavy fuel running, evaluating the
medium and soft compound tyres.
What we learned today:
Track temperature was colder than expected
meaning the car did not handle as predicted.
We saw understeer from both cars, possibly
symptomatic of the cool temperatures.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-03
Free practice 1: P24, 1:50.465, 11 laps
Free practice 2: P13, 1:37.836, 30 laps
Kimi:
“It’s not often that you have a perfect car on
Friday and there are certain things we have to
improve. To be honest, it doesn’t matter if you
are the slowest car on Friday if you are fast
for the rest of the weekend. We now just need to
look at the information and change the usual
things on the car to improve it. We’re aiming
for better results than what we’ve achieved from
the last two weekends. For sure, we have some
work to do on the car. We tried some different
things with the set-up today so we have some
information to look at, and we know there are
certain areas where we have to improve.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-04
Free practice 1: P17, 1:41.204, 14 laps
Free practice 2: P14, 1:37.972, 26 laps
Romain:
“We had strange conditions this morning and a
little bit of a difficult session this afternoon
to be honest. We’re not where we would expect to
be, partly due to the low temperature which we
didn’t expect. We’ll analyse what’s changed
coming from two warm weekends to here where it’s
pretty cold and has changed the game. On a
positive note I’m comfortable with the way the
car feels; we have a few set-up issues but it’s
not as if the car is nowhere. I’m sure we’ll
improve tomorrow, and of course if the weather
changes again then everything will change. It’s
never easy to learn a new track in varying
conditions, but it was good to get out there and
find my way around, and also to get a proper
impression of the intermediate tyres which is a
bonus for me. The track itself is quite nice to
drive, and I was pleased to be reasonably close
to Kimi who obviously has a lot more experience
around here. I’ll be working late with the
engineers tonight.”
James Allison, Technical Director:
“We spent today trying to make the E20 good for
the race and tomorrow we’ll look at ultimate
qualifying pace. The morning session was damp
and drizzly, and the afternoon was a bit cold.
We’re not certain that today will be
representative of the race conditions we’ll see.
We didn’t find a balance that either driver was
happy with today, but we experienced a similar
Friday scenario in Albert Park and Sepang and
managed to get the cars sorted for Saturday.”
Saturday, 14 April 2012
Kimi Räikkönen set the fifth fastest time whilst
Romain Grosjean made it through to Q3 but did
not set a time in the final session before
tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai
International Circuit. Kimi benefits from a
gearbox change penalty for Lewis Hamilton and
will start in P4 for tomorrow’s race whilst
Romain will start from P10.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-03. Q: P5*, 1:35.898. FP3:
P10, 1:37.061. *Starts from P4.
“The grid position is okay but when you look at
the times, I’m disappointed with the pace of the
car today. We’ve gained a position after Lewis’s
penalty but the speed wasn’t where it should
have been, especially when you look at the pole
time. We’ve tried some updates this weekend, but
they haven’t worked as we wanted so we’ve gone
back to how the car was before. We go into the
race less confident in the car than in the last
two races, but knowing that we start from a
higher position on the grid. Let’s see what we
can do tomorrow, we’ll try to do the best we can
and hopefully we can be higher up than we are on
the grid, and that means a podium.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-04. Q: P10, no time. FP3:
P12 1:37.274.
“I have mixed feelings after today’s session.
After struggling a bit yesterday it’s great to
have both cars in Q3, but unfortunately after a
terrible first run in Q2 we were forced to use
up all our new sets of soft tyres before the
final session. This meant there was no point
trying to set a competitive time in the pole
position shoot out which is a real shame, as our
pace in Q2 was good. I feel much more
comfortable with the car and I think that shows
in the lap times today. The team did a great job
to turn things around and get us back towards
the top where we should be. I still have some
fine tuning to do but 56 laps in tomorrow’s race
will certainly help that!”
Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations:
“It should be interesting...”
Both drivers in the top ten again, are we happy
with today’s performance?
“Kimi is where the car should be and I think
he’s reasonably happy with his performance. He
did an excellent job through qualifying and
considering the build up of this weekend I think
we can be reasonably happy. Romain’s absolute
pace is very similar to Kimi’s but qualifying is
hungry for tyres if you can’t get the pace
straight away. Kimi got through to Q3 with just
one set of soft tyres, but Romain required three
sets, meaning he then didn’t have a fresh set
for his Q3 lap. Romain’s got the pace, we just
need to unlock that pace on the hard tyre in a
qualifying situation.”
Why didn’t Romain set a time in Q3?
“As he didn’t have a new set of soft tyres, it
was always going to be a tough ask to get a
blinding lap in the final session, especially as
everyone else who got through to Q3 did have a
new set. It was unrealistic to expect Romain to
qualify higher than tenth in this scenario, but
we sent him out anyway. We soon saw from the
split times that there was no possibility we
brought him in to save a lap on the tyres for
the race.”
What’s the assessment of the weekend so far?
“We brought a new update package for the car and
we weren’t convinced by a large part of it
yesterday. This meant we reverted almost
entirely to our Malaysia specification which is
why we have missed out on potential pace from
the car. We hope to get all the new elements
working soon.”
P4 on the grid is Kimi’s best starting position,
what can be done from there?
“We have to take every race as it comes, but
we’ve certainly seen that we’ve raced more
strongly so far than the two Mercedes ahead of
us, but that said we were a long way off the
pole time, so they are clearly looking very
strong. I’d like to think we can take the race
to the other cars around us. We’re confident in
our starts and our tyre wear and race pace. It
should be interesting.”
Sunday, 15 April 2012
Romain Grosjean benefitted from an aggressive
tyre strategy whilst Kimi Räikkönen ultimately
lost out in a fast-paced and exciting Chinese
Grand Prix at the Shanghai International
Circuit. Romain went from tenth on the grid to
finish in sixth, whilst Kimi ran strongly in
second place until his tyres could no longer
deliver sufficient performance, finally
finishing in 14th.
Both cars started on the yellow-marked soft
Pirelli P-Zero and used a further two sets of
mediums.
Romain pitted on laps 11 and 32.
Kimi pitted on laps 10 and 28.
Kimi ran in P2 for laps 41-47. Romain ran in P2
for laps 29-31.
Kimi Räikkönen, P14, E20-03
“We tried to run two stops as it looked to be
the fastest strategy and up until the last ten
laps it was looking good, but we ran out of tyre
performance at the end. I was stuck behind
Felipe (Massa) for quite a while and couldn’t
get past as I wasn’t fast enough in the right
parts of the track to make a move. Even if I’d
got past I don’t think it would have made the
greatest amount of difference to the final
result. We had good pace in the race, we tried a
different strategy and it didn’t pay off today;
it’s as simple as that.”
Romain Grosjean, P6, E20-04
“It was a very good race, I really enjoyed it.
Unfortunately I made a little mistake fighting
with Mark (Webber) but overall it was a good
performance. The car felt great and the team did
an amazing job to give us such a big improvement
from Friday, so I’m especially happy for the
guys to be able to finish the race and get some
good points on the board. To be up there
fighting with McLaren and Red Bull is a great
feeling and I’m happy to have got my season
started properly. We’ve had high hopes since P3
on the grid in Melbourne, and now after a few
setbacks it’s time to aim higher. There’s always
room to improve and hopefully from here we can
aim for the top five and eventually podiums.
We’ll take things step by step but I’m feeling
confident for the rest of the season ahead.”
Eric Boullier, Team Principal
"It is getting more frustrating for us as we are
clearly very close to achieving a very good
result. Twelve laps before the end of today’s
race we had one car in P2 and one car in P5 with
no more pit stops to go. Unfortunately, we were
a little bit too aggressive with our strategy.
As soon as we understood some cars were doing
three stops it was clear there was potential for
us to finish on the podium, but we were not
expecting the tyre wear to be as high as it was.
For Romain the strategy worked; for Kimi it did
not. The positives from this weekend are that we
continue to show good qualifying and race pace
with the E20, and we were capable of fighting
for a podium finish with Kimi. Also, it was a
very good first full race for Romain. One slow
stop and one mistake when fighting with Mark (Webber)
for position meaning he ran on the marbles cost
him two positions. He recovered very well from
this and his pace was very consistent."
Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations
“Ten laps before the end of the race, Kimi’s
tyres were nearing the end of their life and
unfortunately he got on the marbles when
Sebastian (Vettel) passed. That was the end of
his race effectively as he lost ten places over
the course of a lap. We’ll dissect the data and
see if a three stop would have been better for
us, but everything before the race suggested a
two-stop was the way to go, and this approach
benefitted Romain. Without the gamble we took
with Kimi we wouldn’t have been running in
second position so that was the risk we took.
I’m happy for Romain to finish his first race of
the season. To go from tenth to sixth - racing
with the cars of the calibre he was - showed a
measured performance so it looks good for the
future. We’ve learn a lot this weekend and
hopefully we head to Bahrain with an improved
car and better understanding of this year’s
tyres.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support
Leader
“Congratulations to Romain on his first points
of the season. It was a shame that Kimi could
not get a double points finish, but the speed of
the package is fundamentally there. Engine-wise
we’ve had a trouble free weekend, which is
always positive at this type of track where the
unit gets a workout over the entire rev range.
Driveability through the slow corners was good
and the top speed was reasonable, which allowed
Romain to defend his position in the closing
laps from the Williams and get some decent
points for the team today.”
|
