Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen has been there or thereabouts at the top of the timesheets all weekend in Barcelona, but he ended qualifying on the second row of the grid in fourth position. After climbing out of the car the Finn spoke to reporters about his performance in qualifying and his prospects for the race tomorrow…
Q: Kimi, you’ll start from P4 tomorrow – one of your best qualifying result so far this season. What do you make of that? Kimi Raikkonen: Well, I have to make a good start and then I take it from there. What else do you expect I do? Mercedes have not been as strong in the races as they have been in qualifying so everything seems possible.
Q: After the morning session had you hoped for a spot on the first row of the grid? KR: It’s been pretty good all weekend long, but unfortunately during qualifying it was a bit more windy than it was in the morning session and that made it a bit more tricky in Sector 3. For sure we didn’t have the speed of Mercedes, but we have seen that before so I am open for anything in the race.
Q: Did you have had any idea before qualifying where you would fit in? KR: After I made it into Q3 it could have been P1 or P10. Everything is pretty tight, so I am satisfied where I am as it was the best qualifying result in quite a while.
Q: A penalty points system for drivers has been spoken about recently. Sebastian Vettel clearly said in the FIA press conference that he is not in favour of it. What is your opinion? KR: Why should I make a comment over something that is not finalized yet? Nothing has been decided and I am sure there will be changes made to the proposal. We always had penalties when a driver did something wrong – now they are looking at a new catalogue for handling misbehaviour. The best way to avoid being confronted with any penalties? Do nothing wrong, don’t break the rules – then you’re fine!
Q: Do you expect Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso will be in close combat tomorrow? Alonso sure wants to put on a show in front of his home crowd… KR: How would I know what’s on Alonso’s agenda! Go and ask him.
Q: Do you think that you can do one stop less than the others or will it be an equal playing field? KR: We will sit down and discuss our strategy this evening. And you would have to tie me to a stake to get a word out of me! All I can say is that we will see a very interesting race tomorrow and that is what fans want to see.
On previous form, P4 on the grid for tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix should bode well for our Finnish maestro; but what does the man himself think?
Q: Did qualifying live up to your expectations?
KR: It was not too bad; better than last race for sure. It’s very close here and we could have been P1 or P10 in that final session, so P4 is not too bad. Of course, unless you’re on pole you want to be further up the order, but tomorrow’s when really matters.
Q: How’s the car feeling?
KR: It’s been pretty okay over the weekend. Today in qualifying was a bit more windy than we saw this morning, which made the final sector a little more tricky. We didn’t have the pace get on the front row, but we should have a pretty good car in the race.
Q: What do you expect from tyre strategy?
KR: I don’t know what the others are doing but we’re still working out what our plan will be. A lot depends on how the tyres are working in the race and that’s part of the job for the guys on the pit wall tomorrow. I don’t expect that we’ll do anything massively different from anyone else; maybe we’ll stop at a different time, maybe we’ll stop at the same time, who knows…
Q: What are your chances in the race starting from P4?
KR: You can’t really say on Saturday what will happen; you just have to make a good start and then see what you can do. We’ve got two fast Mercedes ahead of us and we’ll have to see how strong they are over a full distance. I’m sure the Ferrari and Red Bull will be competitive, so like any race we’ll just do our best and see where we end up.
A solid qualifying session for Kimi and Romain at the Circuit de Catalunya saw them take P4 / P7 ahead of tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix. Here’s how it happened…
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap
1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m20.718s
2. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m20.972s + 0.254s
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m21.054s + 0.336s
4. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m21.177s + 0.459s
5. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m21.218s + 0.500s
6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m21.219s + 0.501s
7. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m21.308s + 0.590s
8. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m21.570s + 0.852s
9. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m22.069s + 1.351s
10. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m22.233s + 1.515s
Q2 cut-off time: 1m22.019s Gap **
11. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.127s + 1.126s
12. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.166s + 1.165s
13. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m22.346s + 1.345s
14. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m23.166s + 2.165s
15. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m22.389s + 1.388s
16. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m22.793s + 1.792s
Q1 cut-off time: 1m23.218s Gap *
17. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m23.260s + 1.532s
18. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m23.318s + 1.590s
19. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m24.661s + 2.933s
20. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m24.713s + 2.985s
21. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m24.996s + 3.268s
22. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m25.070s + 3.342s
“I think it is going to be normal chances. We have to make a good start and then try to make the best laps. Mercedes is consistently not as strong in the races as they are in qualifying, so we’ll do our best and see where we end up. It has been pretty OK all weekend. For sure we didn’t have the speed of Mercedes, but we have seen that in the last few races they are very strong in qualifying so we did pretty okay. It is very close between the cars here, and you really have to make the best out of it. I think it is pretty OK. We are a bit better than we were in the last race. I don’t know what the others are doing and don’t know our plan yet. We see what we are going to do, and how it is at the beginning of the race. I don’t think we can do less stops than the others.”
“That was more or less all we could do today. I didn’t make any mistakes on my fastest lap so that was pretty much all there was to come from the car. I wouldn’t say it was a perfect lap, but I don’t think we would have been much higher up the order if it had been. The Mercedes, as we’ve seen before, seems to be pretty fast in qualifying but hopefully in the race we can turn it around. Our race pace has been pretty good all year so let’s try and get on the podium. I’ll have to make a good start, then let’s see what happens.”
Kimi Raikkonen – 4th: “That was more or less all we could do today. I didn’t make any mistakes on my fastest lap so that was pretty much all there was to come from the car. I wouldn’t say it was a perfect lap, but I don’t think we would have been much higher up the order if it had been. The Mercedes, as we’ve seen before, seems to be pretty fast in qualifying but hopefully in the race we can turn it around. Our race pace has been pretty good all year so let’s try and get on the podium. I’ll have to make a good start, then let’s see what happens.”
Romain Grosjean – sixth: “We did a good job today throughout qualifying but on my last lap I made a mistake into turn one, so I decided to back off and save the tyres. Otherwise, I think we could have done a bit better and maybe sit one or two rows further towards the front. I was happy with the car and all the work we’ve done since Friday. For tomorrow, we will see what happens as the competition is very tight. As we have seen, conditions are variable this weekend and once more the tyres should be key.”
Alan Permane, trackside operations director: “We’re pretty happy with today’s performance. We made some changes from yesterday then had a productive morning validating them on track. It was a reasonably straight-forward qualifying session with both cars saving two sets of the medium tyres for Q3 and no real dramas to speak of. Unfortunately Romain had a lock-up on his last lap, otherwise he would have been right on Kimi’s pace, but to have the slower of our two cars starting from P6 certainly isn’t a cause for concern.”
“Looking at race strategy, does the new hard compound or allocation of the hard and medium present any issues? It doesn’t cause us any problems. The new hard compound seems better suited to this track than the previous version, certainly with the temperatures we’ve experienced here. It works well for us. The allocation of the hard and medium compounds is not a life changing scenario either.”
“P4 and P6 starting positions are pretty decent for us when you consider the race pace and tyre management we’ve been able to show so far this season. There’s certainly the potential to have a very good race tomorrow.”
An overcast but dry start to the second day’s running at the Circuit de Catalunya saw Kimi and Romain take P2 / P4 respectively in the final practice session…
FP3 Times:
Pos Driver Team/Car Time Gap Laps
1. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m21.901s 13
2. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m21.907s + 0.006s 14
3. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m22.044s + 0.143s 17
4. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m22.069s + 0.168s 13
5. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m22.229s + 0.328s 17
6. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m22.254s + 0.353s 15
7. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m22.574s + 0.673s 11
8. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m22.729s + 0.828s 17
9. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m22.740s + 0.839s 24
10. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m22.759s + 0.858s 15
11. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m22.839s + 0.938s 26
12. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m23.151s + 1.250s 13
13. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m23.371s + 1.470s 21
14. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m23.373s + 1.472s 13
15. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m23.385s + 1.484s 17
16. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m23.388s + 1.487s 18
17. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m23.660s + 1.759s 16
18. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m23.767s + 1.866s 17
19. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m24.775s + 2.874s 18
20. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m24.793s + 2.892s 16
21. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m25.135s + 3.234s 17
22. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m25.250s + 3.349s 18
Fourth fastest after the opening day’s action, Kimi gives us his view on a closely packed field here at the Circuit de Catalunya…
Q: How was your Friday in Barcelona?
KR: It was a pretty normal Friday. We tried some new things on the car, ran with some different tyres and we’ll have a look at all the data to see where we think we are. We finished the day not too far off the fastest time, so we can say that the day wasn’t a disaster, but for sure there are some things we have to improve with the car which is normal after the first day’s running.
Q: Times are pretty tight at the front of the pack today; should that make qualifying interesting tomorrow?
KR: I guess it’s going to be very close in qualifying too. We aren’t always especially fast in qualifying so we’ll have to see what we can do. We have to get everything right to fight for a good position and then we’ll see where we end up.
Q: How did you find the revised hard compound tyre?
KR: It’s okay.
Q: Does the car feel any different with the latest upgrades?
KR: It’s difficult to compare. We were here last time in the winter and the car has changed quite a lot since then. It feels okay on track; we’re looking at the data to see if the new parts are doing what they should, which is the normal way we do these things.
Q: Does the change of tyres to a harder allocation for this race make any difference to you?
KR: It makes no difference to me; they’re the same for everyone and we all try to get the most performance from them.
With a dry circuit now at their mercy, Friday afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya meant a session of upgrade evaluation for Kimi and Romain. P4 / P18 was the result; here’s how it happened…
FP2 Times:
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m22.808s 34
2. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m22.825s + 0.017s 35
3. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m22.891s + 0.083s 36
4. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m23.030s + 0.222s 32
5. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m23.110s + 0.302s 37
6. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m23.140s + 0.332s 35
7. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m23.398s + 0.590s 45
8. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m23.840s + 1.032s 37
9. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m24.058s + 1.250s 31
10. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m24.104s + 1.296s 25
11. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m24.175s + 1.367s 32
12. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.306s + 1.498s 35
13. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m24.854s + 2.046s 31
14. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m24.888s + 2.080s 38
15. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.167s + 2.359s 38
16. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m25.321s + 2.513s 32
17. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m25.441s + 2.633s 37
18. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m25.851s + 3.043s 35
19. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m25.963s + 3.155s 30
20. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m26.078s + 3.270s 31
21. Charles Pic Caterham-Renault 1m26.930s + 4.122s 35
22. Max Chilton Marussia-Cosworth 1m26.970s + 4.162s 25
Kimi Raikkonen – 8th/4th: “It was a pretty normal Friday. We tried some things on the car, ran with some different tyres and we’ll have a look at all the data to see where we think we are. We finished the day not too far off the fastest time, so we can say that the day wasn’t a disaster, but for sure there are some things we have to improve with the car which is normal after the first day’s running.”
Romain Grosjean – 4th/18th: “Today was okay. It may not look great on the timesheets, but we didn’t finish our lap on the medium tyres as I had to come back in. The circuit isn’t an easy one to understand in terms of tyre performance as there is a lot of degradation, and of course this morning the weather conditions made things a bit difficult. We completed a good number of laps to collect as much data as possible, so we’ll be working on the set-up this evening where we should be able to take some steps forwards.”
A cool, damp start to the weekend at the Circuit de Catalunya saw Kimi and Romain end the morning in P8 / P4 respectively; a somewhat mixed field the result of drying conditions out on track.
FP1 Times:
Pos Driver Team Time Gap Laps
1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m25.252s 20
2. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m25.455s + 0.203s 20
3. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m25.667s + 0.415s 25
4. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 1m26.042s + 0.790s 21
5. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1m26.212s + 0.960s 24
6. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m26.374s + 1.122s 19
7. Valtteri Bottas Williams-Renault 1m26.456s + 1.204s 20
8. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m26.614s + 1.362s 21
9. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m26.621s + 1.369s 21
10. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m26.755s + 1.503s 16
11. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m26.940s + 1.688s 26
12. Nico Hulkenberg Sauber-Ferrari 1m27.061s + 1.809s 24
13. Sergio Perez McLaren-Mercedes 1m27.135s + 1.883s 6
14. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 1m27.250s + 1.998s 26
15. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m27.576s + 2.324s 24
16. Giedo van der Garde Caterham-Renault 1m28.600s + 3.348s 19
17. Jules Bianchi Marussia-Cosworth 1m28.887s + 3.635s 14
18. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m29.177s + 3.925s 14
19. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m29.457s + 4.205s 11
20. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m29.473s + 4.221s 21
21. Rodolfo Gonzalez Marussia-Cosworth 1m30.314s + 5.062s 12
22. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes no time 6
Kimi Raikkonen says Lotus would be ‘stupid’ not to believe it is knuckling down for a world championship fight this year.
The Finn is just ten points adrift of points leader Sebastian Vettel after the first four races of the year, and its car has proved to be a step forward on last year’s challenger.
Although there is still a view that Red Bull has the out-and-out fastest car, Raikkonen says there is absolutely no reason for Lotus not to set its sights on glory at the end of the campaign.
“It would be stupid to say we are not going to fight for the championship,” he explained.
“The only reason why we are here is to try to win championships and races. Obviously we want to fight for it, but you only have to have a couple of bad races and you might be out of it completely.
“We’ll try to make the maximum out of every weekend and in the long run that’s key to the championship.”
Raikkonen said that Lotus was not concerned about any specific element of its package – with qualifying the most notable area it can do better – and was just focusing on trying to improve in all areas.
“We try to improve everything,” he said. “If we improve the car, we’ll automatically improve our qualifying. It all goes hand in hand.
“There’s no magic where you suddenly do one thing and you’re faster in qualifying. If we make the car faster we improve our pace in all conditions.
“You always want to do better. We still have some things that need looking after, and especially in Malaysia [where it rained] we had some issues that could have been better.
“Right now we’ve put ourselves in a pretty good position so let’s see if we can keep it going and improve.”
Kimi Raikkonen proved that driving is not his only talent on Thursday, when he tried his hand at spray painting as part of a Lotus team sponsor event in Barcelona. True, Raikkonen’s work may not yet make the Tate Modern, but for an amateur his skills were surprisingly impressive.
As part of the inaugural ‘burn yard live’, the Finn helped to ‘re-livery’ a Lotus race car under the guidance of world-renowned street artist, M-City. It was the first of a series of such workshops designed to bring together leading innovators from the worlds of youth art, music and sport.
Kimi Raikkonen: “It looks cool. And it fits perfectly with the team’s philosophy of being that extra bit creative. Would I like to race a car designed like this? To be honest, the livery or the colour is the least of my concerns. It has to be fast – that is all that matters.”
The location for Raikkonen’s master class was the regenerated Astilleros shipyards on the shores of Barcelona’s Mediterranean coast. But his artistic education will not stop there – future burn yard live events are planned for locations including Hungary, Korea and Brazil, with the former champion getting a lesson in a new field at each.
Lotus F1 Team Official Partner Burn to introduce exciting new event to the Formula 1 calendar by the name of ‘burn yard live’. On 9th May 2013, the event – the first in a series – will be taking place at the Astilleros shipyards on the shores of Barcelona’s Mediterranean coast. The event will see burn bring together a collective of leading innovators from the worlds of art, music and sport to create a groundbreaking fusion of youth culture. One of the key highlights of the event will see M-City – a street artist renowned globally for his giant monochrome murals – take an unusual canvas in the form of a Lotus F1 Team show car and apply a series of bespoke artwork live in front of an audience.
Q: How long is it going to take to create this artwork?
M-City: It will take me two and a half days to complete the car. At the end of the process, I’ve got a very special guest from Lotus F1 Team – driver Kimi Räikkönen – coming along to help me put the final piece of the design to the car. It will be really cool to collaborate with him.
1. Australian GP: 1st | FL 2. Malaysian GP: 7th 3. Chinese GP: 2nd 4. Bahrain GP: 2nd 5. Spanish GP: 2nd
6. Monaco GP - 26 May
7. Canadian GP - 09 Jun
8. British GP - 30 Jun
9. German GP - 07 Jul
10. Hungarian GP - 28 Jul
11. Belgian GP - 25 Aug
12. Italian GP - 08 Sep
13. Singapore GP - 22 Sep
14. Korean GP - 06 Oct
15. Japanese GP - 13 Oct
16. Indian GP - 27 Oct
17. Abu Dhabi GP - 03 Nov
18. United States GP - 17 Nov
19. Brazilian GP - 24 Nov
F1 Statistics [2001-2013]
World Championships: 1
Fastest Laps: 38
Pole Positions: 17
Grand Prix Wins: 20
Grand Prix Starts: 180
Grand Prix Points: 921
Number of Podiums: 53 (excluding wins)
First Win: Malaysia 2003
Last Win: Australia 2013
Records: 33 consecutive finishes
22 consecutive point finishes
