Lotus won't choose driver on basis of his weight, says Eric Boullier

Eric Boullier

Lotus team Principal Eric Boullier has rubbished reports that the team would choose a driver on basis of his weight.

With several new rules and regulations to be introduced next season in the sport, the engines and the energy recovery system will be much heavier which has left the bigger drivers in danger. However, Boullier insisted that the team would only chose a driver on his merit to replace outgoing Kimi Raikkonen.

“We’re more interested in the talent and potential of a driver rather than the difference of a few kilos. We have confidence in our development team to be able to produce a car for the 2014 regulations which should be competitive in the hands of any driver we consider for next year,” he said.

Boullier also dismissed the claims that he favored Romain Grosjean in the Korean Grand Prix after a team radio broadcast on television showed him encourage the driver to overtake Raikkonen.

“You have to remember that the television feed only takes certain edits from radio transmissions between the driver and the pit wall,” he said.

“We had Romain asking for Kimi to let him by as he felt he was faster, but we wanted to leave the drivers to determine their positions by racing on track which is why we were telling Romain to race Kimi. As we know, Kimi doesn’t want to talk too much to the pit wall and doesn’t need words of encouragement; he knows what he’s doing and we saw that once more in Korea,” Boullier added.