Lotus: We Can Work it Out

Lotus F1 Team will not run for the remainder of the second test at Barcelona, scheduled from today until Friday

Barcelona test finishes early for Lotus F1 Team

Lotus F1 Team will not run for the remainder of the second test at Barcelona, scheduled from today until Friday.

During initial runs this morning with Romain Grosjean at the wheel, the team identified an issue with the chassis. After investigation at Enstone, initial plans to bring out chassis E20-01 to Barcelona have been held in order to give the team enough time to rectify the situation.

Lotus F1 Team will be back on track next week in Barcelona (1-4 March)

James Allison, Technical Director:
“Before we were due to fly chassis E20-01 out to Barcelona in replacement of chassis E20-02 - damaged this morning - we ran a series of simulations at the factory based on the data provided by our brief running on track today. As a result, we were able to identify an area which requires some additional work. It will be more productive for us to carry out these modifications to both chassis at Enstone rather than send E20-01 out to this week’s test. We’ll put the right measures in place and we will be able to fix the problem before next week.”

Eric Boullier, Team Principal:
“Not running this week has been a tough decision to take, but we feel that our choice is the right one. On the positive side, we have quickly identified the issue with the chassis and our design office has already devised a solution. We will be present at next week’s test in Barcelona. We draw faith from the fact that the E20 was quick out of the box in Jerez and showed its reliability there. We have a lot of work ahead of us over the next week but everyone at Enstone is ready for this challenge.”

Source: LotusRenaultGP

Kimi Räikkönen: out but not down

Yesterday wasn't a particularly good day for Kimi Räikkönen, a freak crash ending his Rallye de France. But how does the longer term look for the Iceman, with all those F1 return rumours swirling round?

by Anthony Peacock, Oct 1, 2011

While warming up his tyres for the start of stage three in Alsace yesterday, Kimi somehow managed to run into the back of Ford driver Henning Solberg – who was doing exactly the same thing. With his suspension terminally damaged by the impact to his Citroën, Kimi was off for an early bath.

As his co-driver Kaj Lindström pointed out, these things can just happen: it’s nobody’s fault. When the person ahead is braking while the person behind is accelerating, the end result tends to be inevitable.

And maybe it’s karma kicking in, making up for the time when Lewis Hamilton ran into the back of Kimi in the pitlane at the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix.

But this does mean that Kimi has a little more time now to consider one of the big issues of the moment: what will the Iceman do next year? There’s been speculation linking him to a Formula One return with Williams, while other people think he might keep on rallying. As Kimi himself says, there’s the third option of doing nothing at all. So what are the chances? Let’s speculate…

Go back to Formula One

Kimi’s been to visit the Williams factory and he certainly knows his way around Formula One, having won the title in 2007.

Pros: There are no road sections, it’s familiar territory, and you can make a lot more money in F1 than rallying.

Cons: Williams aren’t a top team any more, he’s been there and done that, it means dealing with the piranha-like F1 media. Again.

Keep on rallying

The Iceman has got two years’ worth of experience invested in rallying and he’s beginning to get the hang of it now. Why not persevere?

Pros: It’s beginning to get easier now, it’s a lot of fun, there are only 13 rounds a year and the journalists seem quite nice.

Cons: It seems harder to win than it is in Formula One and rallying is not especially lucrative. If you go off in Sweden, you might freeze to death.

Walk away

If in doubt, sit it out. Money’s not exactly an issue for the Iceman and it’s a shame to have a great collection of toys at home but not have the time to play with them.

Pros: Who wants to work for a living when you don’t have to? And it’s a neat solution to what might be a difficult decision. Also, it buys you time. Sounds appealing.

Cons: You might get bored. Apart from that, not much really.

Go racing but not in F1

Kimi’s tried NASCAR and also Peugeot’s 908 Le Mans car. But neither of those seems to have exactly grabbed him. There’s always DTM too.

Pros: There’s less pressure, not as much media attention, and it’s not as time-consuming as F1 – but you still get the chance of racing a car. Best of both worlds?

Cons: Do you really need to do any other sort of racing when you’re already a Formula One world champion? Wouldn’t it be just a bit boring?

So there are the options. Now over to the Iceman…

Source: Redbull

KIMI FELT THE PAIN IN SPAIN - OUT AT THE SHAKEDOWN

The Rally de Espana is well-known for being a compact event of the World Rally Championship, based on stages around the Port Aventura theme park in Salou

But this year, the rally will be particularly short for former Grand Prix Champion and Red Bull driver Kimi Räikkönen. The flying Finn went flying a bit too early in proceedings, and damaged his car in the shakedown to the penultimate round of the World Rally Championship. The impact wasn't a huge one, but it damaged his Citroen C4 WRC's roll cage too badly for him to continue.

This year's Rally de Espana is being run for the first time on both gravel and asphalt surfaces, and the shakedown stage contained a bit of both. Kimi completed one run successfully, but clipped a bank on a left-hand corner halfway through the second run, just after the gravel finished and the asphalt began. The impact tipped his car over, and it rolled. The roll cage just above co-driver Kaj Lindstrom's seat was damaged, which meant that for safety reasons Kimi's car was not able to start the rally.

"It was just one of those stupid things that happens sometimes: I just touched the bank and the car rolled," said the Iceman. "It's the sort of thing that if you're lucky you get away with it, but on this occasion there was something that damaged the roll cage on Kaj's side of the car. We can't restart so that's the end of that. It's a pity as I think it was a rally that might have suited us but now we'll never know. I'm obviously disappointed, but I've been around motorsport for long enough to know that disappointments are part of the game sometimes; it's how you deal with them that matters. Now I'm just looking forward to our next event and I'm going to concentrate on the future. That's always more interesting than the past."

The Rally de Espana has often been described as the closest that the World Rally Championship comes to circuit racing, but Kimi will be watching it on television this year as he is now heading straight home to Switzerland.

Kaj Lindstrom is also resigned to being a spectator, but he is always able to look on the bright side of any situation. "It's a pity, but this doesn't really change anything for us," Kaj said. "I've never had a rally finish this soon before, although I've had some pretty short tests with some other drivers! You have to expect anything and learn from everything in this sport, so myself and Kimi have already put what happened behind us. I know Kimi and this will just make him more determined. We're going to go away now, but we'll come back strongly for Rally Great Britain: I'm absolutely sure of this."

Source: RedBullRallye