Sunday: Lotus Renault GP barely salvages their weekend
After disappointing qualifying sessions, the Lotus Renault Grand Prix team hoped to correct the situation during the race. Well aided by his strategy, Nick Heidfeld leaves Great Britain with valuable points while his teammate, the Russian Vitaly Petrov, has to settle for 12th place.
Nick Heidfeld – 8th
« We saw on Saturday that it would be a difficult weekend but, as usual, I said that we should not give up. I got a good start but the first two corners were incredibly tight and I was happy to get through without any damage to the car. The big question for the race was when to switch from intermediates to slicks and we were among the first to do so. It turned out to be the right decision even if we didn’t benefit from it as we usually do. After that, it was an interesting race for me because I had to manage my tires carefully and at the same time attack and defend my position, especially with Michael [Schumacher] and Adrian [Sutil]. Finding the balance between attacking, fighting, and preserving the tires was not only satisfying but also worked well for us with four valuable points at the finish. »
Vitaly Petrov – 12th
« It wasn’t a difficult race today even though I had trouble driving on intermediate tires. I lost a few places and couldn’t defend my position because the traction was poor and the other cars were able to pass me as if it were nothing.
The DRS section didn’t help at all; they should have changed its position on the track because, for me, it wasn’t possible to overtake here at Silverstone. I was very close to Adrian but simply couldn’t get past him, so it was a big frustration. Even on the back straight, there wasn’t enough KERS left to overtake, so it would have been wiser to put the DRS assist zone there.
Eric Boullier – Team Principal
Firstly, it’s great to see Nick move from sixteenth to eighth position at the finish line, so the overall impression of his race is quite positive because we had the right strategy for him.
However, there is a general feeling of disappointment coming out of this weekend because we did not have good qualifying sessions: we even had our worst qualifying of the season here.
This weekend we couldn’t reverse the negative spiral we’re currently going through, but we’re going to keep working hard to fix it. We have some good developments coming up that unfortunately weren’t available for Silverstone but will be ready for the Nurburgring. They should improve our performance, I’m convinced of it.
