Friday: The Lotus seems to be in the mix at Suzuka

Kimi Räikkönen – 8th and 4th:

The behavior of the car is quite good. Of course, there are things we can improve, but I am quite pleased with our progress. I spun in the second session, so we couldn’t complete all the long runs we planned to do this afternoon. I was on a fast lap, and the wind changed, which can affect the car from time to time. At least we didn’t break anything, so the team doesn’t have extra work. It’s not a big problem since we know this track well. We have planned some changes for tomorrow, we’ll see how it goes.

After my spin, there is no damage to the car so there is no problem. Maybe we didn’t do as many laps as we had planned, but it’s not a big deal. I spun, it happens! There was wind today, which doesn’t help. It was quite tricky on certain parts of the track and I just pushed a little too hard.

Compared to the last races, the car suits more what I like here, at least today. Especially over one lap, which is a good thing. That doesn’t necessarily mean much for the rest of the weekend. Tomorrow will be another day, and the story will probably be completely different. Time will tell…

Romain Grosjean – 7th and 5th:

« It hasn’t been the easiest day. Finding the right balance to make the car effective here is quite complicated, and the tires don’t make things any easier as everyone has noticed more degradation than we expected. The wind has also shifted a lot, which didn’t help. So, we have work to do tonight to make our car a bit more manageable. It’s certain that there is still performance to be found.

We are clearly more efficient with the medium tires than the hard ones. The car seems to put a bit more strain on the front tires with the hards and on the rear tires with the mediums. Finding consistency in behavior with both types of tires is the entire challenge, but we have some adjustments to make to improve that. We are generally better on tracks that require a lot of load on the rear of the car, but Korea demanded a lot from the front and we were fine, so I hope that will also be the case here.

The wind makes quite significant differences, especially in fast sections as is the case at Suzuka. Normally, a headwind typically causes understeer while a tailwind results in oversteer, so it’s necessary to adapt when it shifts, which isn’t easy. It seems the wind will change direction throughout the weekend, so keeping an eye on it is essential, that’s for sure.

The pace seems good. I made a mistake with the braking at turn 9 on my fastest lap, so I think a flawless lap will allow us to fight at the front. Maybe not with Sebastian, but at least close enough, I hope. It’s always better to be at the top of the timesheet even when everything isn’t perfect. So we’ll see what we can do tomorrow.

[From the press release published by the Lotus F1 Team]