German Grand Prix – Qualifying Results: 10th

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A difficult qualifying session for Lotus F1 Team, with mixed conditions and a greasy track surface resulting in a wild ride for Kimi and Romain; the latter dropping out of qualifying at the second hurdle for the first time this season.

Qualifying 1 – Key Moments:

0mins: Both cars straight out on medium tyres; rain predicted
5mins: Kimi pits for fresh rubber; mediums again
13mins: The Finn emerges for a third run on hard tyres, goes P1
15mins: The Frenchman does the same; struggles for grip initially
20mins: Chequered flag; Kimi P1, Romain P16

With just over five minutes remaining, both drivers joined the action once more; remaining on the medium tyres to take a final swing at the sharp end of the grid. Kimi rocketed to the top of the times with his first lap; beating a number of drivers using the soft compound in the process. Despite struggling by his usual standards, Romain put together a solid stint to bring himself up the order and joining his team-mate in the next phase.

Qualifying 2 – Key Moments:

0mins: Rain; all cars out to get a time on intermediates before standing water emerged
7mins: Kimi P8, Romain P15 at the halfway stage; rain intensifying
11mins: The Finn starts his final run, closely followed by the Frenchman; both on full wets
12mins: Romain off track at T13; pushing hard to find time in terrible conditions
15mins: Session ends; Kimi P10, Romain P15

With just minutes to spare, both drivers tentatively crept out onto the circuit sporting the blue marked full wet tyres. Times however were not to improve as track conditions deteriorated; Kimi sneaking through to the pole position shoot out in P10, Romain making an off track excursion and subsequently being knocked out in the second stage for the first time this season.

Qualifying 3 – Key Moments:

0mins: Kimi out on full wets; Romain’s session over
2mins: Solid first effort for the Finn as the rain eases
7mins: Fresh full wet rubber for the Iceman as he goes for one final push
10mins: Final result; Kimi P10, Romain P15

Summary:

With his team-mate eliminated from the final phase of qualifying, Kimi flung the sole remaining E20 out of the pits on full wet tyres as the last ten minutes of the day disappeared from the board.

A solid initial run for the Finn before returning to base for fresh rubber; one last stint in mind before the session concluded.

This final effort yielded a decent improvement for the 2007 World Champion, it was not enough to improve on his position; the E20s set to start the German Grand Prix from tenth (Kimi) and twentieth (Romain; five place penalty from his initial placing of fifteenth).

Pos  Driver                Team                 Time           Gap   
 1.  Fernando Alonso       Ferrari              1m40.621s
 2.  Sebastian Vettel      Red Bull-Renault     1m41.026s  + 0.405
 3.  Mark Webber           Red Bull-Renault     1m41.496s  + 1.838
 4.  Michael Schumacher    Mercedes             1m42.459s  + 2.880
 5.  Nico Hulkenberg       Force India-Mercedes 1m43.501s  + 3.329
 6.  Pastor Maldonado      Williams-Renault     1m43.950s  + 3.492
 7.  Jenson Button         McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.113s  + 3.565
 8.  Lewis Hamilton        McLaren-Mercedes     1m44.186s  + 0.875
 9.  Paul di Resta         Force India-Mercedes 1m44.889s  + 4.268
10.  Kimi Raikkonen        Lotus-Renault        1m45.811s  + 5.190
Q2 cut-off time: 1m39.729s                                   Gap **
11.  Daniel Ricciardo      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m39.789s  + 2.424
12.  Sergio Perez          Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.933s  + 2.568
13.  Kamui Kobayashi       Sauber-Ferrari       1m39.985s  + 2.620
14.  Felipe Massa          Ferrari              1m40.212s  + 2.847
15.  Romain Grosjean       Lotus-Renault        1m40.574s  + 3.209
16.  Bruno Senna           Williams-Renault     1m40.752s  + 3.387
17.  Nico Rosberg          Mercedes             1m41.551s  + 4.186
Q1 cut-off time: 1m16.686s                                    Gap *
18.  Jean-Eric Vergne      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1m16.741s  + 1.048
19.  Heikki Kovalainen     Caterham-Renault     1m17.620s  + 1.927
20.  Vitaly Petrov         Caterham-Renault     1m18.531s  + 2.838
21.  Charles Pic           Marussia-Cosworth    1m19.220s  + 3.527
22.  Timo Glock            Marussia-Cosworth    1m19.291s  + 3.598
23.  Pedro de la Rosa      HRT-Cosworth         1m19.912s  + 4.219
24.  Narain Karthikeyan    HRT-Cosworth         1m20.230s  + 4.537

Lotus team quotes:

Kimi Raikkonen – 10th: “We weren’t fast in the wet today for some reason and we need to look at why that was. I wasn’t able to get any grip from the tyres, even when we tried a fresh set of wets half way through the final qualifying session. In the dry the car is very good and in the races our car usually has strong pace. Let’s hope for some dry weather tomorrow and see what happens.”

Romain Grosjean – 15th: “The rain seemed to come at the wrong time for me ; it always was at its heaviest when I was trying to go for a quick lap. It was certainly difficult out there to find enough grip and not to get held up by other cars. It’s difficult to understand why I was so far behind Kimi in qualifying when I’ve been very close to him during the rest of the weekend. I’ve got it all to do tomorrow and I’ll be working hard with my engineers to ensure we’ve got the quickest car and the best strategy to go for some points.”

Alan Permane – trackside operations director:

Q. How do you assess today’s qualifying performance?

AP: “Qualifying was a frustrating session. In the dry we looked to be comfortably one of the quickest cars out there, but as soon as it rained we really struggled with both. We will obviously investigate why we weren’t able to extract any pace at the crucial time today.”

Q. What can be done in the race?

AP: “The forecast is for a dry race and we are confident in our pace in those conditions, particularly over a race distance. Kimi can still have a good race from P10 on the grid and we’re looking at the strategy options for him. Romain has more work to do from P20, but it’s a relatively easy track in terms of overtaking with DRS so we can still achieve a good result.”

Q. What can be achieved by Romain from the back of the grid?

AP: “Romain has his work cut out, but in dry conditions he’s likely to have one of the fastest cars on the track. We’ll be doing everything we can to give him the best strategy to move up the order and that’s certainly his objective for the race.”