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If Lotus-Renault had any opportunity to help Kimi Raikkonen catch up Sebastian Vettel, they had to give the Iceman a car that would put him on the podium at Monza. The retirement at Spa was disappointing for the Finn and he had lost his hard earned second place in the driver’s championship. The Lotus’ looked good on Friday with both Kimi and teammate Romain Grosjean putting some fast laps (even had the same time in FP2) and the team trying different configurations for the two cars.
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But they lost the advantage in qualifying, going out in Q2 and from there on it was a struggle and things didn’t go down well for the Enstone, UK based team for a second consecutive race. That wasn’t the only thing Lotus was struggling with, as the rumours of Kimi joining Ferrari were the talk of the paddock. A high-profile driver like Kimi leaving for a better team isn’t always a good sign.
Qualifying
The Lotus’s clearly lacked the pace and weren’t able to get the right setup for the fast paced Monza. The track required low down-force to get speed but that seemed too hard for the Lotus cars and they were struggling for grip and were simply not fast enough. Both Kimi and Grosjean went out in Q2 with 11th and 13th respectively. With Kimi’s remarkable skill of jumping cars for places on race day, the team hoped he and some rain would be able to turn it around, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
Race Day
Although rain and storms were in the forecast for the day, the race remained dry and that actually helped some of the faster cars with less pressure on the tyres on a relatively cooler track. Lotus, though, were left playing catch-up in the mid-field.
Kimi Raikkonen
Kimi’s race start was disastrous like the qualifying. He locked up his front tyres trying to avoid contact leading into the first corner, before he crashed his front wing into the back of the Mclaren-Mercedes of Sergio Perez. The crash led him to an unplanned pit stop and from then on it was time for Kimi to drive through the backmarkers. He wasn’t ready to give up and soon after the pit-stop started putting in multiple fastest laps. He was ahead of struggling Lewis Hamilton but the Brit had enough speed in the Mercedes to overtake the Finn in the final laps of the race. The race result meant he was stranded on the fourth place in the Drivers Championship with no points to take home in the last two outings.
Romain Grosjean
It was one of those occasions where the overzealous (and risky) Grosjean had beaten his illustrious teammate. He managed to survive the incident that caught his teammate off-guard at the first corner and that helped him move up the grid during the race. The French driver put in a few hard laps, eventually managing to chase down the two McLarens of Jenson Button and Sergio Perez and then prevent a late charge by Lewis Hamilton to keep his eighth place till the Chequered Flag.
Lotus would be hoping for a turnaround for the Asian tour starting with Singapore, though Kimi would be ruing his missed chances for the top spot for another year in his Formula One career.
