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Friday, 21 September 2012
Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean took to the
streets of Marina Bay Street Circuit for the
first practice sessions of the Singapore Grand
Prix. The first session, held between 18:00 and
19:30 local time, started wet with the track
drying over the duration. The second session,
from 21:30 to 23:00, was dry throughout. Kimi
ended the day with the twelfth fastest time ;
Romain with the tenth.
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director -
Technical programme notes
A wet start to the first session meant we only
ran with our updated rear wing at the end of
proceedings on Kimi’s car.
Pirelli’s wet, intermediate and soft compound
tyres were used by both cars in FP1.
Pirelli’s soft and super soft tyres were used in
the drier second session.
What we learned today :
We didn’t gain sufficient data in the first
session to run with the new rear wing for the
rest of the day.
There is quite a bit of difference in single lap
pace between the two tyre compounds.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05
Free practice 1 : P12, 1:52.716, 16 laps
Free practice 2 : P12, 1:50.345, 24 laps
Kimi :
“It wasn’t the easiest of days for us today. We
don’t have enough grip for some reason, and we
seem to be lacking downforce. It’s the same on
both tyres ; a little bit better when the tyres
are new, but still not quite the pace we want. I
think we can improve for tomorrow but we have to
find two seconds to get to the front. I don’t
think we’ll find that much time ; but I think we
should improve from Friday as we usually do.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-03
Free practice 1 : P15, 1:53.028, 20 laps
Free practice 2 : P10, 1:50.161, 24 laps
Romain :
“It feels good to be back on track. Our position
on the time sheets in the morning was not what
we’d have liked and even after FP2 we know there
is more performance to be found. The car is
basically the same as what we ran in Monaco and
Budapest where we were very competitive but
we’ve struggled a bit for grip today. The good
thing is we understand what we need to do, the
team has been working hard to make improvements
and I’m sure we’ll be stronger tomorrow.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director :
“We didn’t learn too much in the first session,
but we did get some quick laps on the
intermediate tyres. In the second session we
evaluated the two tyre compounds, completing
long runs on both. There’s quite a bit of single
lap pace difference between the two of them.
It’s fairly clear which tyre will be the
preferred one for qualifying but not so clear at
the moment which tyre is the better prospect for
the race. We’ll be looking closely at lap times
and degradation levels overnight.”
Saturday, 22 September 2012
Romain Grosjean will start the Singapore Grand
Prix from P8 on the grid, whilst Kimi Räikkönen
will be in twelfth position after a hot and
sticky qualifying session at the Marina Bay
Street Circuit. The grid results mask
significant improvements found in the E20
overnight, illustrated by Romain setting the
fastest time in Q1 and the fourth fastest time
in Q2.
Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05. Q : P12, 1:48.261.
FP3 : P5, 1:48.865
“The car was much better overall today than it
was yesterday. We were quick with the used tyres
but for some reason struggled for grip with the
new ones in the second session and we were
actually slightly slower. For sure P12 is not
the position we wanted ; we don’t seem to have
the speed to challenge the leaders here but the
car is definitely quicker than that. We’ll see
what we can do in the race.”
Romain Grosjean, E20-03. Q : P8, 1:47.788.
FP3 : P15 1:50.840
“The result is not as good as we wanted, but
this is a very hard track to get right and we’ve
been struggling for ultimate grip throughout
this weekend so far, so overall it was good to
be in Q3. After Q1 and Q2 we felt positive but
it didn’t quite come together in the final
session. I pushed a little bit too hard on my
last lap ; it felt good in the car, but it
wasn’t good for my lap time and there was one
moment where I lost most quite a lot of time. It
was pretty close but I don’t think I touched the
wall ; I’ll have to check to see if the Pirelli
tyre markings are still there !”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director :
“We’d found a lot of improvements in the car so
we’re disappointed with qualifying.”
How do you assess today’s qualifying
performance ?
“We’re disappointed with qualifying as we were
hoping for a lot better than we achieved. We
improved the car dramatically overnight and
through today’s practice session. Romain was two
tenths slower in Q3 than he had been in Q2, but
we could all see where most of that time was
lost on his lap. Kimi was slower on a fresh set
of tyres than he was on a scrubbed set, but it’s
not immediately apparent why this was the case.
He looked in excellent shape with his scrubbed
run.”
The car seemed to be better than yesterday –
why was this ?
“We found a much better setup in our analysis
overnight and we continued in that direction
through FP3, steadily improving the car with a
further step made going into qualifying. Both
drivers were pretty happy with the car at the
end of practice today.”
How do the different tyre compounds perform
here ?
“The super soft compound is a lot faster than
the soft tyre and it will need a big difference
in degradation for the soft to be the preferred
option in the race.”
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Kimi Räikkönen fought back from twelfth on the
grid to maintain his third position in the
Drivers’ Championship with a battling sixth
place in the Singapore Grand Prix. Romain
Grosjean finished close behind in seventh after
a gruelling race with two safety car periods and
a number of retirements. The team remains fourth
in the Constructors’ Championship, 95 points
ahead of Mercedes in fifth and 14 behind Ferrari
in third.
Both drivers started on Pirelli’s super soft
compound.
Kimi pitted for his first set of soft compound
tyres on lap 13, and his second set of softs
just as the first safety car came out on lap 32.
Romain ptted for soft compound tyres on lap 14,
and for his second set of softs under safety car
conditions on lap 33.
Kimi Räikkönen, P6, E20-05
After the result in qualifying today’s race was
not too bad, but I think we had a chance to do a
bit better. We weren’t quick enough to be
fighting for the podium but the first safety car
didn’t help us and maybe we could have gained an
extra place without that. We were definitely
faster than Michael [Schumacher] and Nico
[Rosberg] but we ended up stuck behind them for
most of the race which was frustrating. It’s so
hard to overtake here that you have to rely on
passing people in the pit stops or on someone
making a mistake. I’m still third in the Drivers’
Championship but we’ve got some improvements to
make for the next races to be fighting with the
cars in front. Hopefully we can make a step
forward in Japan and take it from there.
Romain Grosjean P7, E20-03
It was a tough race but not a bad result in the
end. I made a good start, managed to hold
position when things got quite close through the
first few corners and the car felt pretty good
throughout. Our performance was much better than
what we would have expected at the start of the
weekend. Of course, I dropped a position to Kimi
as well ; he was quicker than me towards the end
of the race and there was no sense in holding
him up. It’s never easy as a driver to let
someone past – even if it is your team-mate –
but we need to be intelligent in these
circumstances. My target is to be as close to
Kimi as I can in terms of pace and we achieved
that today, so after a difficult start to the
weekend I think we can be pleased with this
result.
Eric Boullier, Team Principal
We had a difficult start to the weekend but the
team did a good job to recover. Qualifying was
frustrating after both cars showed strong pace
in Q1 and the first part of Q2 but ultimately
fell short of what we were hoping for in the
end. The race pace from both cars was good and
although we were unlucky with the first safety
car our strategy worked well. After a difficult
weekend for us Kimi is still third in the
Drivers’ Championship and we have not lost too
much ground to McLaren and Red Bull in the
Constructors’ standings so that is a big
positive. The fact that we feel our lack of
performance here was quite unexpected shows our
ambition and our priority for the rest of the
season will be to make sure we’re in the sort of
positions we know we can achieve right from the
start of each weekend.
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director
It hasn’t been a great weekend for us, so to
salvage sixth and seventh is something of a
result in the circumstances. We took a gamble
with Kimi’s second stop, but he was caught by
the safety car coming out as he left the pit
lane. We certainly didn’t have the pace to
challenge the front runners today and after a
difficult qualifying session it was difficult to
get through the field. It’s clear we need to do
a better job in qualifying to enable us to
achieve better race results.
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team
Support Leader
A dramatic race that was quite difficult to
manage on the engine side due to the two safety
car periods. We had to play with the engine
mixes a lot throughout the race to correct the
fuel level and avoid finishing with too much.
Both drivers did a good job to avoid the
incidents on track and get a double points
finish, which based on our grid position and
overall performance this weekend is a very
positive result. We are looking forward to
Suzuka now, which should suit our car better. |
