Sunday: Räikkönen scores points with Lotus
After a lively and eventful race, notably due to Romain Grosjean, with a drive-through penalty and a 20-second penalty that does not change the race result, it is ultimately his teammate, Kimi Räikkönen, who climbs onto the podium. Eric Boullier, proud of their performances, promises a combative return at the end of August.
Kimi Räikkönen – 2nd:
« It was a good race and a good result for the team. The strategy worked well. We did two long stints with the tires, but they weren’t that bad, and the car was good, which allowed us to make one less stop. In the last laps, the rear tires were a bit at their limit, but apart from that, it was fine. Sebastian [Vettel] caught up with me a few times, but fortunately, it was in places where you can’t really overtake. The most positive thing is that we gained some points on Seb for the championship. Obviously, we might have been able to close the gap a bit more with a win, but anything we can claw back will help. We are only halfway through the season, and it’s going to be tough to catch up, but anything can happen, so we will keep fighting until the end.»
Romain Grosjean – 6th:
Obviously this one is missed, but I’m very happy with my race and honestly I don’t think I could have done better. Maybe the strategy didn’t work as well as we hoped, but the car was really good and it was the traffic that cost us the most. Without that, maybe there would never have been a pit lane penalty which, for sure, didn’t help. I still haven’t seen the footage and thought I was well positioned, but unfortunately the stewards saw it differently. I have no problem with the time added due to the incident with Jenson and I apologized to him afterward. It could have been the right one for me, but we just have to wait a little longer and continue to improve as we have done recently.
