Saturday: The Caterham drivers in their place in the rain

Kamui Kobayashi (No. 10) – 16th and 18th

Despite a rain-affected free practice 3, the Japanese driver managed to work a little on the settings of his Caterham to improve it for the rest of the weekend: « As FP3 took place in the rain and the grip levels were low, everyone was cautious but we still managed to complete 12 laps, all on intermediates except for the installation lap. The car was fine, with a bit too much oversteer, but we were able to gain a little on braking during our two stints and finished the session without any issues. »

In qualifying, the rain once again made an unexpected appearance, and Kobayashi took a gamble by using the intermediates, but unfortunately, it didn’t yield results as the conditions didn’t favor the chosen strategy: « It was raining before the start of qualifying, but the track conditions were borderline for choosing between intermediates and wet tires, so we chose intermediates because we thought it would give us a better chance to spring a surprise in Q1. It was clearly a bit complicated with the intermediates, but the times were similar to the wet tires on the first stint, so we made the same choice for the second stint up until the checkered flag. For the second stint, conditions improved slightly, but not enough to give us a real advantage on intermediates, so finishing ahead of Bianchi in 18th place and just three-tenths behind Gutiérrez is probably the best we could do today. »

Marcus Ericsson (#9) – 18th and 20th

The Swede took advantage of Free Practice 3 to rack up valuable kilometers in an F1 car in the rain, although it was cut short due to problems with the Renault engine block: « The FP3 was my second rain session of the season and we did the installation lap with rain tires before switching to intermediates for the first stint. It went well, but when I returned to the pits, we found several issues with the power unit and an overheating front right brake, which means I could only do six laps in this session. »

Ericsson therefore approached the qualifications with a level of preparation that was not ideal, but he managed to outperform Max Chilton’s Marussia, which delighted him: « The qualifications were difficult […] but I am quite happy with my final position, as it was only my 3rd session in the rain in F1! We chose the same strategy as Kamui and the car was really difficult in the first stint – I was locking the front and rear in the braking zones and it cost me a lot of time, and I also had traffic, but overall I’m happy to have kept the car on the track and finished ahead of Chilton. »