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Lotus F1 Team may not have topped the time sheets during the free practice sessions here in China, but the team once again demonstrated true fighting spirit to end the day with an encouraging qualifying performance ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix tomorrow afternoon.
Kimi’s second run was significantly more productive, with the 2007 World Champion putting the trials and tribulations of Friday’s practice sessions well and truly to rest. When the chequered flag dropped at the end of a frantic final minute on track, the Finn found himself in an impressive P5 after setting a fastest time of 1:35.898 from 5 laps.
As mentioned Romain struggled to replicate his Q2 pace on the worn tyres, but will nonetheless start the race in a solid P10 despite not setting a time in the final part of qualifying. With Hamilton taking a 5 place grid penalty, Kimi will be promoted to P4 on the final grid for tomorrow’s Chinese Grand Prix. (read the team’s full qualifying report here).
Kimi Räikkönen – 4th: “The grid position is okay but when you look at the times, I’m disappointed with the pace of the car today. We’ve gained a position after Lewis’s penalty but the speed wasn’t where it should have been, especially when you look at the pole time. We’ve tried some updates this weekend, but they haven’t worked as we wanted so we’ve gone back to how the car was before. We go into the race less confident in the car than in the last two races, but knowing that we start from a higher position on the grid. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow, we’ll try to do the best we can and hopefully we can be higher up than we are on the grid, and that means a podium.”
Pos--Driver---------------Team-----------------Time-----------Gap 1. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m35.121s 2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1m35.626s + 0.505 3. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m35.691s + 0.570 4. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1m35.784s + 0.663 5. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1m35.898s + 0.777 6. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1m36.191s + 1.070 7. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1m36.290s + 1.169 8. Sergio Perez Sauber-Ferrari 1m36.524s + 1.403 9. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m36.622s + 1.501 10. Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault No time Q2 cut-off time: 1m35.831s Gap ** 11. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1m36.031s + 0.331 12. Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m36.255s + 0.555 13. Pastor Maldonado Williams-Renault 1m36.283s + 0.583 14. Bruno Senna Williams-Renault 1m36.289s + 0.589 15. Paul di Resta Force India-Mercedes 1m36.317s + 0.617 16. Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 1m36.745s + 1.045 17. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m36.956s + 1.256 Q1 cut-off time: 1m36.933s Gap * 18. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m37.714s + 1.516 19. Heikki Kovalainen Caterham-Renault 1m38.463s + 2.265 20. Vitaly Petrov Caterham-Renault 1m38.677s + 2.479 21. Timo Glock Marussia-Cosworth 1m39.282s + 3.084 22. Charles Pic Marussia-Cosworth 1m39.717s + 3.519 23. Pedro de la Rosa HRT-Cosworth 1m40.411s + 4.213 24. Narain Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth 1m41.000s + 4.802
Interview with Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations:
Q. Both drivers in the top ten again, are we happy with today’s performance?
AP: “Kimi is where the car should be and I think he’s reasonably happy with his performance. He did an excellent job through qualifying and considering the build up of this weekend I think we can be reasonably happy. Romain’s absolute pace is very similar to Kimi’s but qualifying is hungry for tyres if you can’t get the pace straight away. Kimi got through to Q3 with just one set of soft tyres, but Romain required three sets, meaning he then didn’t have a fresh set for his Q3 lap. Romain’s got the pace, we just need to unlock that pace on the hard tyre in a qualifying situation.”
Q. Why didn’t Romain set a time in Q3?
AP: “As he didn’t have a new set of soft tyres, it was always going to be a tough ask to get a blinding lap in the final session, especially as everyone else who got through to Q3 did have a new set. It was unrealistic to expect Romain to qualify higher than tenth in this scenario, but we sent him out anyway. We soon saw from the split times that there was no possibility we brought him in to save a lap on the tyres for the race.”
Q. What’s the assessment of the weekend so far?
AP: “We brought a new update package for the car and we weren’t convinced by a large part of it yesterday. This meant we reverted almost entirely to our Malaysia specification which is why we have missed out on potential pace from the car. We hope to get all the new elements working soon.”
Q. P4 on the grid is Kimi’s best starting position, what can be done from there?
AP: “We have to take every race as it comes, but we’ve certainly seen that we’ve raced more strongly so far than the two Mercedes ahead of us, but that said we were a long way off the pole time, so they are clearly looking very strong. I’d like to think we can take the race to the other cars around us. We’re confident in our starts and our tyre wear and race pace. It should be interesting.”
Video: Onboard with Kimi in Q3
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