Monaco GP team review: Lotus

Team Lotus endured a frustrating afternoon at Monte Carlo. After showing good pace through the start of the season, Lotus came into the race as one of the favourites along with Mercedes and Red Bull.

Things started off on a sour note as the drivers endured a difficult qualifying session. The team struggled for speed and Grosjean failed to make the cut into Q3 and started 13th on the grid. Raikkonen showed good pace in Q2 but failed to do the same on the super soft tyres, finishing 5th with a time 9/10th of a second slower than Rosberg.

Kimi held onto 5th at the first corner and started pushing Webber for 4th place by lap 9. But the tricky streets of the principality made overtaking very difficult. The DRS zone also did not help as Webber was able to use his KERS out of the Anthony Nogues.

He pitted on lap 27 for a fresh set of soft tyres, two laps after Webber, but couldn’t take any advantage as he came out behind the Aussie and later held off a spirited challenge from Alonso on lap 40.

After the race was red flagged, Kimi chose to start on the harder of the two compounds used during the race, a strange decision considering the fact that majority of the drivers were on super-softs. By lap 53, Sergio Perez was right behind Raikkonen after two bold moves on Button and Alonso at the Nouvelle Chicane. He tried the same manoeuvre on Kimi but the Lotus was forced to go wide to avoid the McLaren. Perez was persistent and made another over enthusiastic move at the chicane but this time the drivers collided, resulting in Perez’s retirement and a tyre puncture for the Finn. The Finn later claimed that the Mexican should be ‘hit in the face’ to make him understand, when asked if the drivers would collectively speak to Sergio.

Another pit-stop for a new wing and a new set of super-softs left him down at 16th with just few more laps to go and points seemed highly unlikely at this time. But Kimi put his head down, set a few fastest laps and at the start of the last lap was in 11th and managed to overtake Hulkenberg at Sainte Devote to take 10th place and win a point in what proved to be a very challenging race.

Grosjean on the other hand made the headlines for all wrong reasons again. After failing to improve on his starting grid position, the Frenchman was stuck outside the point-scoring position. But terrible error from the Lotus driver, where he missed the braking point at Nouvelle chicane and rammed into Daniel Ricciardo‘s Torro Rosso caused another stir, with fellow drivers and F1 analysts claiming that the driver is “too dangerous for F1″. The driver was given a ten-place grid penalty for the collision.

Last September, Grosjean became the first driver in a decade to suffer a full race suspension after being found guilty of triggering a first-lap pile up at the Belgian GP. He seems to be running out of chances and another few mistakes like these might see him out of F1 for good.

Kimi’s future at Lotus looks bleak with rumours about a him joinig Red Bull next year, gaining momentum. He has not made it secret that he will have several options to choose from in 2014 but if Lotus can improve on the solid start this season and push for the championship, the Finn might consider staying.

Both drivers will be eager to drive out their cars at Montreal and put the memories of a miserable weekend at Monaco behind them. Last year at Montreal, the Frenchman managed a 2nd-place finish, whereas, Kimi finished 8th.