|
Friday 26 October
Kimi Räikkönen went fifth fastest and Romain
Grosjean set the ninth fastest time at the end
of Friday’s two practice sessions at the Buddh
International Circuit ahead of Sunday’s Indian
Grand Prix. Both drivers used the team’s new
Coandă exhaust system, with new updated rear
bodywork sections, whilst Kimi evaluated a new
evolution front wing. Both cars ran reliably
throughout the two 90 minute practice sessions.
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director -
Technical programme notes
- We ran the Coandă exhaust system on both cars
for the first time following its successful
debut with Kimi in Korea.
- New bodywork around the exhaust area to better
harness and utilise the Coandă system was
employed on both cars.
- Kimi evaluated the latest evolution front wing.
- Pirelli’s hard compound tyre was used in the
morning, the hard and soft used in the afternoon.
What we learned today :
- We’re confident we’ll be able to put in a good
showing tomorrow.
- We need to find more pace on the hard tyre,
but soft tyre pace is good.
- We are yet to reach a conclusion on whether we
will use the updated rear bodywork.
- The front wing will be used by both cars for
the rest of the weekend.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05
Free practice 1 : P10, 1:29.291, 24 laps
Free practice 2 : P5, 1:27.030, 40 laps
Kimi : “The circuit is nice. For me it was
easier to learn than the Korean track ; it’s not
as technical but it’s good. It’s always nice to
come to a new place like this – I’ve been racing
for many years, and you always end up going to
the same places so it’s good when you get a new
place and a new circuit. For sure we can still
improve on one lap but I think we are not far
away from our maximum speed. Of course I hope
that we are faster than McLaren. Our car was
working well, especially on soft tyres but with
the hard tyres it was more difficult to find
grip.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-03
Free practice 1 : P15, 1:29.895, 19 laps
Free practice 2 : P9, 1:27.397, 36 laps
Romain : “It’s been very hard to set-up the car
as the track has been evolving a lot through the
day ; from zero grip in the morning to much
better in the afternoon. However, we’ve made
good progress today and we’re working on
improving further overnight. There are a few
blind corners, and some quick places where you
don’t want to make mistakes either. Hopefully we
find the car we want for qualifying and get what
we want tomorrow.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director :
“Both drivers got up to speed pretty quickly on
a new track once more. We spent the morning
session evaluating the new front wing and some
new rear diffuser parts ; we need to investigate
further the diffuser parts but the new front
wing looks good so we’ll run it with both cars
for the remainder of the weekend. We were able
to conduct an uninterrupted FP2 programme,
running both tyres reasonably early on, followed
by a long run on the soft compound. We’re
missing a little pace on the hard tyre so we’re
investigating our tyre temperatures and
pressures, however on the softer tyre our car
looks very competitive on both low and high fuel
loads. It would be nice to squeeze another two
or three tenths out of the car in qualifying,
but nevertheless we confident of the potential
for a good show tomorrow.”
Saturday 27 October
A closely fought qualifying session at the Buddh
International Circuit saw Kimi Räikkönen take
seventh position on the grid whilst Romain
Grosjean was just edged out of the top ten
session, qualifying in eleventh place for
tomorrow’s Indian Grand Prix.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05. Q : P7, 1:26.236. FP3
: P5, 1:26.209
"We changed the car after this morning’s session
and we were quite confident heading in to
qualifying. Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to
have any grip this afternoon so it was much more
difficult than we thought. I’m quite
disappointed to be starting from seventh as I
thought we had a much better car than that."
Romain Grosjean, E20-03. Q : P11, 1:26.136
FP3 : P10 1:26.664
"I was expecting better so I’m a little
disappointed, however in terms of strategy P11
has one advantage as you’re the first car that
can choose which tyres it will start the race on
and I have a couple of new sets in my pocket for
tomorrow. I wish I could have got through into
Q3 and lacking two hundredths of a second to
make it there was frustrating. On my second
timed lap I was doing well, but for whatever
reason the car snapped on me and I lost time. It
was difficult to get everything right, but we’re
looking strong to score some good points
tomorrow."
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director :
"It’s going to be a tricky race to move forwards."
How do you assess today’s qualifying
performance ?
"It was a disappointing result. Kimi had a very
good session in the morning and we were looking
forward to a strong qualifying. Unfortunately,
neither driver felt they had the grip levels
they had enjoyed in the morning. Romain reported
poor overall grip in all corners, whereas Kimi
had issues with the low speed corners - a
nervous car on entry and poor traction on exit -
which are typical comments made about a car
which is lacking in all round grip."
Where do you think the car should be on race
pace ?
"Qualifying seventh behind two Red Bulls, two
McLarens and two Ferraris shows that we have the
fourth fastest car here. We will do what we can
in the race but we’ve seen very low tyre
degradation and overtaking is difficult due to
the circuit layout and DRS setup."
What strategies do the tyres allow ?
"We think one or two stops will be the preferred
strategies and will work tonight to see which
will suit us best."
Sunday 28 October
Kimi Räikkönen took seventh while Romain
Grosjean finished ninth in a solid but
frustrating Indian Grand Prix where both drivers
finished right behind the cars ahead. Kimi
maintains third position in the Drivers’
Championship on 173 points ; 54 away from
Fernando Alonso ahead and six in front of Mark
Webber behind. The team remains fourth in the
Constructors’ Championship on 263 points ; 43
behind McLaren and an increased 127 in front of
Mercedes.
Kimi started on soft tyres, pitting on lap 27
for a set of new hards.
Romain started on hard tyres, pitting on lap 36
for a set of new softs.
Kimi Räikkönen, P7, E20-05
“I had a very good car today but I just couldn’t
do anything with it as I was not able to pass on
the straight. It was quite disappointing but
that’s how it goes. We put ourselves in that
position yesterday with the set-up we chose for
qualifying and we paid the price today. We had
the speed but not in the right place and when
you are behind someone there’s not much you can
do. Hopefully in the next race we can be a bit
more smart and use our race speed to take some
more Championship points.”
Romain Grosjean, P9, E20-03
“Finishing 9th after starting from 12th is good
but we could have done even better. That said, I
think it was a very good race from myself, my
engineers, and the crew during the pit stops. We
did everything we could ; everybody was working
at 100% but today we were lacking some speed in
a straight line which makes it impossible to
overtake. I pushed on every lap - it was like 90
minutes of qualifying - and gave everything to
get the best performance from the car, so I’m
very happy.”
Eric Boullier, Team Principal
“Like every race, qualifying is obviously the
key to get good points so yesterday’s
performance defined our race. Unfortunately Kimi
was unable to overtake Felipe and stayed stuck
behind. I think we had the pace to be a little
bit better and get nearer the front. We clearly
need to work on qualifying and make sure we do a
better job. We know our car is strong in the
race and I think both drivers today did the job
we were expecting. The team did a great job on
the pit stop strategy so we cannot complain.
Let’s just say we’re frustrated that we didn’t
do a little bit better.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director
“Both drivers reported that their cars were
excellent during the race, which was good. The
downside was that Kimi spent the whole race
looking at the back of Massa’s car and Romain
was held up for around four laps whilst Michael
(Schumacher) received blue flags ahead of him.
This circuit is pretty difficult to overtake on
; even though there’s a very long straight, the
DRS zone isn’t actually that long. It was clear
we were definitely faster than the cars ahead,
just not sufficiently faster to overtake.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team
Support Leader
“A double points finish is a good result today.
We worked very hard with the team to optimise
the Coandă exhaust system and we have made some
good progress in this area. In this respect it’s
been a very positive weekend and we hope to
build on this momentum in a week’s time in Abu
Dhabi.”
|
