Friday: Lotus is far from reaching its goal but intends to bounce back
While the Lotus drivers primarily focused on evaluating the different tire compounds provided to the teams by Pirelli, Kimi Räikkönen is disappointed with the pace shown by the Lotus E20 today but expects improvement tomorrow. Romain Grosjean, on the other hand, is pleased to be back behind the wheel of his car, even though he also believes that Lotus is far from its true potential.
Kimi Räikkönen – 12th and 12th:
« For us, it hasn’t been the easiest of days. For some reason, we don’t have enough grip and we seem to lack downforce. It’s the same on both types of tires, slightly better when the tires are new, but it’s still not the pace we want to have.
I think we can improve for tomorrow, but we need to find two seconds to get back in front. I don’t think we’ll find that much time, but I think we should improve as we usually do between Friday and Saturday.
Romain Grosjean – 15th and 10th:
It’s good to get back on track. Our position on the time sheet this morning wasn’t what we would have hoped for, and even after Free Practice 2, we know there is more performance to be found. The car is fundamentally the same as the one we had in Monaco and Budapest, where we were very competitive, but we struggled to find grip today.
The good news is that we understand what we need to do, the team has worked hard to make improvements, and I’m sure we will be stronger tomorrow.
