Canadian GP Team Preview: Lotus

Lotus started the season brightly but had a difficult time in the Monaco GP, collecting a solitary point through Kimi Raikkonen. The team will now try to regain lost ground at the Canadian GP this weekend as the car has showed good pace in both race and qualifying throughout the season. Lotus currently lie 3rd in the constructor’s table, 1 points behind 2nd place Ferrari and 52 behind table toppers Red Bull.

Kimi Raikkonen’s hopes for second championship title took a small dent after a crash with Sergio Perez, with the McLaren driver going for an improbable gap into the chicane on the Lotus star in the closing stages of the Monaco GP. But the Finn fought back from 15th place and overtook Hulkenberg on the last lap to finish 10th, thus winning a point. Prior to the accident, the 33-year-old Finn was running fifth and was only poised to drop a few points in the title race to Sebastian Vettel, but the gap has now increased to 21 points and Kimi will be hoping for at least a podium finish this time around.

“For sure we lost ground on the lead in Monaco, but it’s not over yet,” said Raikkonen.

“It’s still early in the season and 21 points behind is not too much to catch up, especially if Sebastian has a bad weekend too at some point.

“The most important thing is we return to our race level before Monaco to get things going our way as soon as possible.”

As for Raikkonen’s spat with Perez, given his driving exploits of late, he insists that is now in the past.

“No-one wants to lose so many points thanks to the actions of another driver, but that race is over,” added Raikkonen.

“Monaco is just a distant memory and I’m all ready for Canada.”

Kimi Raikkonen also has one of Michael Schumacher‘s Formula One records in his sights this weekend. If Raikkonen finishes in the top 10 in Montreal, the Lotus driver will equal Schumacher’s record of 24 successive Grands Prix among the points, albeit as a result of a change in the scoring system.

“I am sure that it will all stop at some point,” he said about the milestone. “Obviously, we always try to get points and do good races, but it can be some small part [that breaks] and it will stop.

The pressure is on his team-mate Romain Grosjean to perform in Canada. The 27-year-old made the headlines in Monaco for all the wrong reasons again. A very talented driver, Grosjean sometimes gets overly-aggressive and his crash with Ricciardo’s Torro Rosso was just silly. The Monaco stewards slapped him with a 10-place grid penalty for Montreal.

“I got caught out behind Daniel and will have to suffer quite a harsh penalty of ten places on the Montreal grid, but we’ll be working hard to devise the best strategy to work back up the order.

“I think we had the pace to be in the top three, but unfortunately we didn’t get the qualifying position we wanted and it’s almost impossible to move up the order in Monaco,” said Grosjean on his performance at Monte Carlo.

With just one podium finish so far, Grosjean will be hoping to set things right again at Montreal and make repay the trust the team have showed in him.

The Lotus driver had a fantastic weekend at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, last year. Starting 7th on the grid, Grosjean fought his way up to finish second. He will be hoping for similar fortunes this time around.