Twilight Time

Obviously, we took a risk, tried something different to find a couple of tenths more for qualifying, and the whole weekend in India went in a wrong direction at the same time.

The Indian Grand Prix is one of those to forget quickly. We had a good car to get good lap times in the race. But while we stuck behind a Ferrari after the start, well, there we were for the whole race.

I tried to pass, but, it was a simple fact, there were not enough speed in the straights to attack. Once I was in front of the Ferrari, but it didn’t last long. It was my decision to make the changes to the car after FP3 on Saturday. That makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow. It could have been totally different ball game from the better position in the grid. Now we shall never know. We were seventh, got six points and while the leaders got much more.

I’m happy to stay on with Lotus F1 Team. The deal is done and now we can focus to put together some good results in the end of the season. We are heading for the next race in Abu Dhabi. It’s a different challenge while the race will be a mixture of a day and an evening race. We start with the sun and finish with the lights. It’s a so called Twilight race. I’ve experienced it once with Ferrari. Now I want to improve from that and get the first points - hopefully a podium - from there, as well.

The car should be at its’ best in the kind of layout of the circuit. There are not too many long straights and some lower speed corners should be good for us.

We push really hard to get a solid qualifying session like we had in Korea. You need to be up there in the first two rows to have a chance for a podium finish in this race. That’s our target. Let’s wait and see, how it goes.

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