Saturday: Räikkönen places his Lotus on the front row

Kimi Räikkönen – 7th and 2nd:

This is my best qualifying for the team, which is nice, but obviously, you always want to be on pole. It has been a difficult weekend so far, and we’ve had some issues with our settings, but it’s always challenging to get things exactly how you want them, and the car seems to be working well now. The tires will obviously be the big question mark tomorrow; some will start on mediums, but we’ve chosen the strategy we believe will work best. Let’s hope we can manage the degradation as we have this season and have a good race tomorrow.

Romain Grosjean – 18th and 6th:

« Friday was a difficult day and we lost time this morning, so it has been a complicated weekend, but I am finally back in shape. We had some issues here and there, but the engineers worked very hard and did a fantastic job to bring the car to where it is. My first lap on softs in Q1 was my first of the weekend with these tires, so we had to guess a bit on the setup, but I think we did well. Of course, you always want to do better, but overall, I am delighted. The car was much better this afternoon, so we’ll see what we can do in the race. »