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Kimi Raikkonen slid from second to 14th in
the closing laps – where did it all go wrong?
Well, first of all what a fantastic race. China
was really thrilling right to the end, and it
was thanks to the different tyre strategies the
teams adopted. Kimi’s strategy was quite
optimistic, staying out on his third set of
tyres. I was so shocked when he lost all those
positions in just a couple of laps. He did a
great job of keeping those cars behind him as
long as he did, but suddenly there was a big
drop-off of grip and when Sebastian Vettel got
past, Kimi was forced to go off line and picked
up the discarded rubber marbles. He had no
chance to clean his tyres and everyone else
passed him. Fernando Alonso suffered more or
less the same thing, but there weren’t so many
cars behind him and he only lost a couple of
places.
The two-stop strategy seemed to work better
for Romain Grosjean, who rose from tenth to
sixth…
Yes, he had good race pace. After his accidents
in Australia and Malaysia he had to be more
careful, he knew he needed to get to the end. I
was quite happy with what he did, at a track
he’s never driven on before.
The car is capable of more though. It must be
frustrating for them not to be on the podium yet…
It’s really tough when your results don’t match
your performance. Ferrari has a car that is
uncompetitive, but after two rounds Fernando was
leading the world championship. At Lotus, things
are the other way around. They have a very
competitive car but they haven’t pulled it all
together. In this situation, it is important to
stay cool and acknowledge they have the car,
they trust the drivers, and the results will
come. Unlike last year, when the Red Bull RB7
dominated, this season there isn’t a clear
frontrunner and that means it’s all about
detail. Because it’s so close out there, the
winning team will be the one that makes no
mistakes. One little detail missing, and the
results won’t come. So Lotus need to stay calm,
but keep an eye on every detail.
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