Lotus hope that they can turn a poor Qualifying session into a strong race performance. Both cars were caught out by the rapidly developing track and will start seventh and eighth.
Raikkonen, who starts eighth, admitted that the Lotus is not a great car in the wet conditions: “When it was dry in the second qualifying session we were fastest, so if it’s dry tomorrow we should be okay for the race; even though we will not start from a great position. The last qualifying session was wet and our car does not give its best in these types of conditions. Any lap which came right at the end of the session would have helped, but if it stayed dry it would have helped more.
“Tomorrow is another day so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”
Romain Grosjean was frustrated with the conditions and shares echoed his team-mates views on the car in wet conditions: It was a frustrating session for the team. The weather conditions were difficult, but the same for everyone. We displayed great pace in the dry with Kimi fastest in Q2, but unfortunately the rain returned for the final phase. We tried to get a lap in right at the start on dry tyres, but the rain beat the start of the session so we had to change to intermediates. Seventh and eighth on the grid isn’t where we want to be, but at least we’re in the top ten.
Image courtesy Lotus F1 Team
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