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Grosjean leads the field
towards the first corner
Friday, 11 October 2013
Eric Boullier, Team Principal: “We are deeply
saddened to hear of the passing of Maria de
Villota earlier today. On behalf of the team
here in Japan and back at Enstone, I would like
to express our condolences to the friends,
family and colleagues of Maria. Our thoughts are
with them at this difficult time.”
Kimi Räikkönen set the fourth fastest and Romain
Grosjean the fifth fastest time on the first day
of practice for the Japanese Grand Prix.
Hot conditions, clear blue skies and off-track
excursions from a number of drivers
characterised the day, amongst them Kimi; who
ended the second session early – stranded in
gravel at Turn 7 – following a spin.
Technical programme notes:
Kimi missed the final 30 minutes of running in
FP2 following a spin.
Pirelli’s hard compound [orange] tyre was used
in the morning, the hard and medium [white] in
the afternoon session.
What we learned today:
The E21 demonstrated strong potential on both
tyre compounds.
Kimi Räikkönen, E21-05
Free Practice 1: P8, 1:35.364, 17 laps
Free practice 2: P4, 1:34.202, 17 laps
Kimi: “The car felt pretty good today. Of course,
there are some areas we can improve but I’m
quite happy with the progress we made. I spun in
FP2 so we did miss some of the long run laps we
would have got this afternoon. I was on a fast
run and the wind changed, which can affect the
car sometimes. At least we didn’t do any damage
so the crew won’t have any extra work. It’s not
a big drama as we know the track pretty well. We
have a few changes for tomorrow so let’s see
what happens.”
Romain Grosjean, E21-04
Free Practice 1: P7, 1:35.179, 15 laps
Free Practice 2: P5, 1:34.411, 30 laps
Romain: “Finding the right balance to get the
car working well around here is quite tricky and
the tyres are not making that any easier, so
we’ve got some work to do overnight to make it a
little easier to handle. There’s definitely some
more performance to be found, and it’s always
better to be near the top of the times even if
you’ve not got things quite right, so we’ll see
what we can do tomorrow.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: “We
have struggled a bit for consistency today, with
both drivers having off-track excursions. Romain
in particular experienced brake locking, which
is something we can counter with some mapping
work. We lost a reasonable amount of long run
data collection as a result of Kimi’s spin,
meaning Romain’s programme was modified slightly
and we might look at doing some race simulation
work during tomorrow’s practice. On the softer
tyre we look competitive and I think we can
expect to qualify well. Our long run pace also
looks good so it’s an encouraging start to the
weekend.”
Saturday, 12 October 2013
Romain Grosjean qualified P4 with team-mate
Kimi Räikkönen P9 ahead of tomorrow’s Japanese
Grand Prix. Warm, dry conditions remained
throughout the day at the Suzuka circuit, with
changing wind direction a factor throughout
proceedings.
Romain put in an impressive lap on the hard
compound tyre to go fastest in the red flag
interrupted Q1 session with Kimi taking P8. The
Frenchman then edged a tight intra-team Q2
battle to take P3 from his Finnish counterpart’s
P5, with both posting laps within three tenths
of one another in the final Q3 session to end
the day in P4 / P9.
Kimi Räikkönen, E21-05
Q: P9, 1:31.684
FP3: P8, 1:32.946
“The car has felt much better here than it has
in recent races; even if we don’t have a better
position on the grid for tomorrow. A small
mistake on my quick lap cost me a little bit of
time and it’s very close here, so a small amount
lost can mean quite a few positions dropped.
We’ll have to see what happens in the race, but
the car has certainly been more to my liking
this weekend so the position on the grid is not
a drama.”
Romain Grosjean, E21-04
Q: P4, 1:31.365
FP3: P4, 1:32.707
“The Red Bulls have looked very strong and we
knew it would be tight with Lewis [Hamilton] for
P3, so I think we did a good job to take P4. The
car feels much better than it did yesterday;
especially on the hard tyres which we had been
struggling with previously but were then fastest
with in Q1 today. The team worked hard to
address this overnight and we’ve shown great
progress through the weekend once again. It’s a
tight, technical circuit, the wind is still
making things tricky and it should stay pretty
hot, so it’ll be interesting to see what we can
do in the race. I’m feeling pretty good.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director:
“We’re now very happy on both tyre compounds”
How was qualifying for the team?
Today went reasonably to plan with both drivers
in the top ten for tomorrow’s race. Romain
continued his good qualifying form and P4 on the
grid is a good result, but agonisingly close to
P3 once again. It was a very close qualifying
session so to have Kimi start P9 is no big
drama; especially as we know how well he can
work through the field in race conditions.
How much progress has been made since yesterday?
After missing some long runs on Friday, we spent
more time on race preparation during morning
practice and managed to unlock some extra pace
in the car – especially on the primes – so we’re
now very happy on both compounds. Yes, we did
struggle with the hard tyres yesterday, but
we’ve made a significant setup change which has
certainly been beneficial in this area. Both
drivers are much happier with their cars.
What are the strategic permutations tomorrow?
The weather forecast looks fine, while the wind
– which is often a factor here – looks to be
coming from a similar direction to today
although maybe not as strong. With that in mind
– added to our pace on both tyre compounds –
we’re confident we can come up with a good
strategy for a strong result.
Sunday, 13 october 2013
Another strong performance for Lotus F1 Team
saw Romain Grosjean take a fighting third,
whilst team-mate Kimi Räikkönen battled his way
to fifth in a tense Japanese Grand Prix at
Suzuka. A superb start from Romain saw him lead
in the early stages, before fighting hard with
both Red Bulls in the latter stages. Kimi
endured a tough start – dropping back to P11 –
before battling back in typical fashion to climb
back up the order.
Kimi retains third place in the Drivers’
Championship on 177 points; sixteen clear of
Lewis Hamilton and thirty behind Fernando Alonso.
Romain Grosjean remains eighth in the standings
on 87 points, just three behind Felipe Massa.
The team maintains fourth in the Constructors’
Championship on 264 points; now just 23 behind
Mercedes and comfortably ahead of McLaren.
Kimi started from P9 with a scrubbed set of
medium compound tyres, changing to scrubbed hard
tyres on lap 11 and new hard tyres on lap 31.
Romain started from P4 on a scrubbed set of
medium compound tyres, changing to scrubbed hard
tyres on lap 12 and new hard tyres on lap 29.
Kimi Räikkönen, P5, E21-05
“I had a very poor start. I left the line with
wheelspin and lost a few places which wasn’t
ideal, but I managed to gain places back later
on in the race. After the final pit stop the car
was working much better. It ran well in the last
half of the race and I was very happy with it.
It was a pretty normal race I would say. It’s
difficult to overtake here so it’s good that we
got some points. We did what we could.”
Romain Grosjean, P3, E21-04
“Today was just a very, very good race. What a
start! It was superb to go past both the Red
Bulls like that and it’ll be one of my best
memories of the year. The car was fantastic on
the first set of tyres and we managed to pull
away, but then the Red Bulls were able to reel
us in later on. Ultimately, we were the only car
to almost catch the bull. It’s been a great home
race for my engineer; it’s always good to come
to Japan and it’s really good to be back on the
podium again.”
Eric Boullier, Team Principal
“It’s great to see such a good fight in the race
and both our cars show so strongly. Once again,
both drivers, our strategists and the pit crew
performed brilliantly and we did the very best
we could on track. We don’t have the pace to
beat Red Bull, but today we showed them that we
are nevertheless quite formidable whilst also
underlining to Mercedes and Ferrari that we are
a strong contender for the final four races of
the season. We must say a big thanks to everyone
at Enstone for the fantastic car we have in the
E21. To see Romain leading the race was very
satisfying and we hope to see that again very
soon.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director
“It was a great race for us and superb to see
Romain leading for so much of it. We were the
only team to take the fight to Red Bull;
ultimately they were too quick for us but we
took a strong and well deserved third place with
Romain and a fighting fifth with Kimi. Romain
made a fantastic start and we had enough in hand
in the first stint to be able to pit a lap later
than Mark, but they started to catch us on the
medium tyres and Sebastian was able to catch and
pass reasonably easily with their superior pace.
It’s a great feeling to show so strongly at
Suzuka.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support
Leader
“Suzuka plays to the strengths of our
chassis-engine package, with the straights
taking advantage of the good top end power
whilst our driveability and good tyre wear
favour the slower, more flowing sections. A
great race for Romain today; he had a fantastic
start and was in contention for the win
throughout the entire race. Kimi also had a
strong race and was very close to giving Renault
a perfect 1-2-3-4 result!” |
