Sunday: Celebrations for Räikkönen, frustration for Grosjean
Kimi Räikkönen secured his second podium of the season despite an unintentional lift to the nose and front wing of his car - following contact with Sergio Pérez's McLaren - and a hesitant start from the front row. For his part, Romain Grosjean endured a more challenging race, with a ninth-place finish rewarding his tenacity.
Kimi Räikkönen – 2nd:
The second place is not what we were looking for, but under these circumstances, it’s the best result I could achieve today. I’m not 100% happy because the victory is not there, but that’s how it is.
Second place is a good result after a bad start and the incident with Sergio [Perez]. The race was difficult. Obviously, the car is not designed [with a hole in the nose] otherwise we would use it that way all the time, but I was surprised to see how effective it remained. Of course, it wasn’t easy to drive, but we managed to survive with this problem and stayed quite competitive.
Romain Grosjean – 9th:
The race was long and difficult and once again, we failed to get the car to perform as we wanted. I am really not happy with this ninth place. Starting from 6th, I thought I had a good chance to finish in the top 5, unfortunately, that was not possible.
I gave everything I could but I never managed to find the desired performance, especially since I was caught in traffic, which doesn’t help. It’s good to score points for the team, but I want to do better in Bahrain, that’s for sure.
[From the official statement released by the Lotus F1 Team]
