Minimizing the loss

The first two races are done, I¹m back in training at home, and getting ready for the next double in China and in Bahrain.

We got the best result in Australia, but not that good in Malaysia. As I said after winning in Melbourne, the main target for the championship fight is to get strong points and if that is not possible, to minimize the not that good results while time being.

It¹s was a race to minimize the loss. Well, we lost a piece of the front wing in the first lap, then we had some tight moments with a couple of drivers, and finally managed to finish the race in P7 and take six points with us.

Afterwards it didn¹t feel too bad. We still got some points, we had a good feeling with the car on Friday, we know ­ more or less ­ what went wrong and we should be able to fix it for the next race.

Obviously, it doesn¹t mean anything right now which position we have in the championship, but still it¹s better to be closer to the top like this compared what we had done last year after a few races.

(source)

why he missed out on a podium place in Sunday’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

The Finn, who won last week’s Australian Grand Prix, had to give best to his teammate Romain Grosjean, who finished one spot ahead of him in sixth place.

The results placed the Enstone-based team second behind Red Bull in the Constructors Championship.

“Although the car felt very good on Friday, yesterday and today have been pretty difficult,” he said after the race.


“Since Saturday morning it has not been behaving as we expected for some reason, especially in the wet where we really struggled for grip.

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Kimi Raikkonen has admitted his Lotus just didn't perform as expected in Malaysia, although he is hopeful they can get back to the front again, providing they can 'get the car back to how it was in Australia' where he won.

Raikkonen began the weekend at the Sepang International Circuit in fine form and was quickest in Friday practice.

However after that he struggled and in qualifying could do no better than seventh. He then found himself demoted to tenth on the grid, after he was judged to have impeded Nico Rosberg in Q3, and combined with a tardy start, had his work cut out to get a decent result.

Although he did manage to score and took seventh to keep his run of consecutive points finishes intact, the race was a real contrast to that just seven days earlier.

“Although the car felt very good on Friday, yesterday and today have been pretty difficult,” Raikkonen admitted. “Since Saturday morning it has not been behaving as we expected for some reason, especially in the wet where we really struggled for grip.

“It was a tough race and I lost part of my front wing at the start which didn't help, but at least we scored a few points which is better than coming away with nothing.

“If we can get the car back to how it was in Australia then I'm sure we'll be right at the front again.”

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Lotus Renault boss Eric Boullier has admitted that he was not surprised that his team struggled in the Malaysian Grand Prix at the weekend.

Kimi Raikkonen triumphed in the season opener in Australia, but the Finn and Romain Grosjean both finished more than half a minute off the pace on Sunday.

"It is a prediction we had after the winter testing. It is going to be very, very tight. I think you can expect, mainly because of the tyre management situation, a different race winner each time," Boullier told AutoSport.

"But we can say we are definitely in the top four. Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and us are very, very close."

The Chinese Grand Prix takes place next month.

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After Kimi Raikkonen won the season opener in Australia, the Finn and his team-mate Romain Grosjean were not a factor at the front in the Malaysian Grand Prix as they finished more than half a minute adrift of race winner Sebastian Vettel.
Boullier reckons that such variations in form were what the team was expecting for the season, especially because of the complications caused by the 2013 Pirelli tyres.
"It is a prediction we had after the winter testing," said Boullier. "It is going to be very, very tight.
"I think you can expect, mainly because of the tyre management situation, a different race winner each time.
"But we can say we are definitely in the top four. Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull and us are very, very close."
Boullier thinks that the difficulties Raikkonen and Grosjean had in extracting speed from the car in wet conditions - allied to time lost working their way back up the order – were the main factors behind its failure to finish on the podium at Sepang.

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With the wet start and qualifying hampering the iconic Norfolk marque more than most on the grid, Lotus had to settle for Raikkonen coming home seventh after a long-term battle with his E21 in Sunday’s Malaysia Grand Prix.

More eyecatching was Romain Grosjean performance, which saw the Frenchman come home sixth.

“It’s not been the best day for us, but when you take into account our qualifying positions and the difficult start for both drivers I think the points we take for sixth and seventh is a solid result,” said Boullier, with Kimi starting 10th after taking a three-place grid penalty and Grosjean 11th.

“Unfortunately with the conditions today we didn’t see the full potential of the car, and the time we lost at the start was always going to be difficult to catch up. To finish within a reasonable distance of the leaders was a good effort from both drivers and also the team in terms of our strategy. With a normal weekend I’m sure we can expect some stronger results.”

“I think we can be quite happy with the result today,” added Grosjean. “It’s not the result we would have wanted at the beginning of the weekend, but at the end of the day it’s more points for the team and we’ll try to come back stronger in Shanghai.”