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Day 1, Friday 22 June 2012
Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean took to the
track today for the first practice sessions at
the Valencia Street Circuit ahead of Sunday’s
European Grand Prix. The day’s programme began
with windy and cloudy conditions in the morning
which improved in the afternoon.
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director -
Technical programme notes :
Today we evaluated a new front wing on Romain’s
car and an updated floor, new rear suspension
configuration and revised steering set-up with
Kimi.
Both cars ran Pirelli’s medium compound tyres in
the morning and the medium and soft compound in
the afternoon.
What we learned today :
Our base setup appears to work strongly in
Valencia.
Long-run, heavy-fuel pace in particular was good.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05
Free practice 1 : P10, 1:41.620, 22 laps
Free practice 2 : P11, 1:39.945, 34 laps
Kimi :
“The car feels okay and there were no issues.
The wind was a bit of a factor in the morning
but it was better in the afternoon. I was stuck
in traffic for quite a bit of my long run in the
second session, so I wasn’t able to go as fast
as the car was capable of, but we don’t have any
issues on that front. The E20’s strong point
always seems to be its race pace but of course
we are looking to make it quicker in qualifying.
Let’s see how it is tomorrow morning and we’ll
do whatever’s necessary. We’ll make a few
changes to the car for sure, but I think we’re
pretty okay.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-04
Free practice 1 : P11, 1:41.784, 15 laps
Free practice 2 : P8, 1:39.868, 33 laps
Romain :
“Today was not as hot as we expected, certainly
after the weather we saw here yesterday, but the
long run pace was there and the car felt good.
We still have a few things to try with the setup,
so there should be some more pace to come.
Qualifying will be the big moment for us as we
have seen that we need to find a little bit of
improvement there. It’s not the end of the world,
as we have seen that we can make good gains on
Sunday with our race pace. The trick will be to
find more speed in qualifying without disturbing
this.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director :
“It’s been a straight-forward and issue-free
Friday for us. We conducted aero evaluation of a
new front wing and new floor and we will be
considering the data this evening. In the
afternoon we concentrated on race pace and tyre
management so our finishing positions, as usual,
don’t necessarily represent where we expect to
be after qualifying tomorrow. Overall, we’re
very happy with the way the E20 is performing
here. There is some scope for improvement to get
both Kimi and Romain 100% happy with their cars,
which we will work on tomorrow morning. In terms
of long run pace we think we are looking
competitive.”
Day 2, Saturday 23 June 2012
Romain Grosjean went fourth fastest whilst Kimi
Räikkönen was just eight thousandths of a second
behind with the fifth quickest time in a searing
qualifying session on the streets of Valencia
for tomorrow’s European Grand Prix.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05. Q : P5, 1:38.513. FP3
: P3, 1:38.759.
“It was very close in qualifying, especially in
Q2, so it’s good to be fifth on the grid. The
car felt good. If we could have improved just a
little bit on my last lap then we could have
gained a couple of places, but it is an
improvement on last time out so I’m very happy
with that. We found a few good things with the
setup this morning to make the car easier to
drive. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. The car
usually goes well in the race when it’s hot, so
let’s see what we can do.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-04. Q : P4, 1:38.505.
FP3 : P2 1:38.655.
“Today we got pretty much the most out of the
car that we could have. P4 is a good position
for the start of the race but of course you want
always more and to do better. Sebastian did an
unbelievable lap and today we could not have
matched it. We have improved our qualifying
performance but there is still room to do better.
Tyre degradation will be more important than
what we saw at the last race. There will be 57
laps in hot conditions on Sunday ; we will see
what we can do for a good race tomorrow.”
Alan Permane, Director of Trackside
Operations :
“We’ve come from much further back on the grid
than P4 or P5 and finished very well.”
How do you assess today’s qualifying
performance ?
“We’re very happy with today’s performance and
both drivers have done an excellent job. Fourth
and fifth positions on the grid are excellent
places to start and we know the E20 has
demonstrated very strong race pace at the
majority of circuits this season. I’m sure
tomorrow will be no exception.”
Has there been a particular focus on
qualifying this weekend ?
“We haven’t done anything radically different
from our approach at previous Grands Prix. We’ve
certainly had a smoother weekend so far than we
did last time out in Montréal, and we seem well
suited on the soft tyres. We’ve looked at the
data and given greater consideration to
qualifying pace, but our race preparations
remain the same.”
What are the strategy considerations for
tomorrow ?
“We’ve come from much further back on the grid
than P4 or P5 and finished very well, so we have
good confidence heading into tomorrow’s race.
That said, overtaking is very difficult here
even with DRS, so we’re not expecting an easy
race from that perspective. It’s likely to be a
very hot race which will give the tyres a hard
time and we’re confident in those conditions.
It’s open for a one, two, or three stop strategy
tomorrow, so let’s see what happens.”
Day 3, Sunday 24 June 2012
Lotus F1 Team secured another podium finish
thanks to a searing performance from Kimi
Räikkönen to finish second in today’s European
Grand Prix. The Finn was terrific through the
traffic and was able to challenge at the front
right to the end of the race.
For Romain Grosjean, hopes of another podium
were dashed after an alternator failure at two
thirds race distance whilst running second.
Kimi and Romain are now sixth and seventh in the
Drivers’ Championship. The team remains third in
the Constructors’ standings ahead of Ferrari,
despite being the 11th team in terms of race
laps completed this year. Lotus F1 Team still
holds the second highest total in terms of
podiums this year (5), behind McLaren (6).
Kimi is now the driver to have contested the
greatest number of laps this season, along with
Fernando (Alonso) and Nico (Rosberg) : 498 in
total. Kimi sits third in terms of podiums
clinched this year (3), behind Lewis (Hamilton)
and Fernando (Alonso) with 4.
Both drivers started on used sets of soft
compound Pirelli tyres.
Kimi stopped on lap 14 for more used softs as
did Romain two laps later.
Both drivers changed to new medium tyres under
the safety car on lap 28.
Kimi Räikkönen, P2, E20-05
"Second place is okay but the win is what I
really wanted. We didn’t quite have the pace for
it today. I got a good start but I was blocked
by Pastor (Maldonado) at the first right-hander
and lost quite a few places which put me a bit
behind. We made a good recovery from that
position and had quite a hard fight with a few
people - overtaking and being overtaken. I
couldn’t get the tyres up to temperature quickly
enough after the safety car, and I made a small
mistake on the re-start lap too. I was able to
fight back as we had good race pace again. Today
was close but the race win was just out of reach.”
Romain Grosjean, DNF, E20-04
“Basically the car lost power and switched off.
I couldn’t even call my engineer on the radio as
the radio was dead. The race was almost perfect
up until that point : we had a good start and a
good strategy. I don’t think we were that far
from our first win. The positives of this
weekend are that we battled right at the front
and we showed good pace. Sebastian (Vettel) was
very strong and I don’t know if we could have
caught him. When he had his issue, I was in
second place behind Fernando (Alonso) and it was
then that I thought we could challenge for the
lead because we knew that our tyre degradation
was going to be less than his. Unfortunately
fate decided otherwise…”
Eric Boullier, Team Principal
"It’s a good result for the team and for Kimi.
Second brings a lot of points, and we also
didn’t lose ground on the teams ahead of us in
the championship standings. On the other side of
the coin, it’s been a disappointing day for
Romain as he was in such a good position for at
least a podium finish. This is racing, and we
will work closely with our partners to ensure we
don’t see a failure like this again in the
future. Both drivers and the team worked very
well this weekend and we have shown that if we
achieve a good qualifying position we can fight
for the win.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director
“I’m very happy for the team to be on the podium
again with a strong second position from Kimi.
I’m sorry for Romain as he was in a good
position before what we believe was an
alternator failure resulted in a lack of fuel
pressure, causing his car to stop. He was right
in the fight to be on the podium again so that
was unfortunate. Our tyres held up well against
the opposition and we did see overtaking once
the tyres of other cars dropped away. It was
quite a straight-forward call for the final pit
stop under the safety car, and we could see that
there was enough space between both cars to
double stop them. Both drivers did very good
jobs today. We know we need to look at getting
heat into the tyres quicker after a safety car,
but otherwise a very strong weekend.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team
Support Leader
“Second position for Kimi shows the strength of
the car in race conditions. We have to apologise
to Romain however, who could also have got a
very decent result here as well. The alternator
failed at about two thirds distance and the car
stopped due to no electrical power. We will look
into this thoroughly and see what happened in
this instance.” |
