Saturday in Austin: “car works better when it’s warmer”

Source: lotusf1team.com

P5 on the timing sheets, P4 on the grid for Kimi; a penalty for his team-mate promoting the Finn one position on the grid for tomorrow’s United States Grand Prix. We caught up with the Iceman to hear his thoughts on a hotly contested qualifying session here in Texas.

Q: Kimi, P4 on the grid for tomorrow’s race; is that about what you expected?

KR: I was actually expecting a more difficult qualifying session today, but the car was the best its felt all weekend so it turned out to be quite good. It’s still difficult to get the tyres working with the way the track is at the moment so I think we can be happy with where we are.

Q: You weren’t entirely comfortable with the car yesterday; was there a significant improvement for qualifying?

KR: The set-up is still not exactly how I want it but it’s much closer. Our car works better when it’s a bit warmer and that certainly made a difference this afternoon. The track is still quite slippery – especially in the morning – but it’s getting better all the time so the grip will come.

Q: Last time out you qualified P5, were promoted to P4 and the won the race; can you do the same tomorrow?

KR: We didn’t have the speed of the Red Bull today so in a normal race it will be difficult to beat them but you never know what can happen. Being on the dirty side of the grid maybe isn’t the best; we’ll have to hope that the circuit picks up a little more grip for the race but it is what it is. We’ll try to get a clean start and see what we can do from there.