ZitatGrosjean downplays team controversy after radio messages By Jonathan Noble and Matt Beer Sunday, October 6th 2013, 08:43 GMT
Grosjean downplays team controversyRomain Grosjean insisted there was no controversy over his battle with Lotus team-mate Kimi Raikkonen late in the Korean Grand Prix, despite fraught radio messages. Raikkonen beat his team-mate to second with a late-race pass at Turn 1. Radio broadcasts picked up tense conversations between Grosjean and the team over whether he could repass afterwards, culminating in a request for the Frenchman to "smile" on the podium as the matter would be discussed later.
After the race Grosjean played the matter down and said the loss of second place was just down to his own mistake. "Unfortunately for me and good for Kimi, the safety car came," said Grosjean. "I made a small mistake, my fault, and Kimi passed me and then there were yellow flags so I couldn't use DRS. "I don't hear most of the [radio] conversation. I was quicker today. It is a track where it is almost impossible to overtake. "I should have avoided the AstroTurf in Turn 15 and that would be the end of the conversation. "It was my mistake, it is not the end of the world."
Raikkonen said the pass had been fairly routine. "He made a mistake in the second-last corner and I got a good run," said the Finn. "I think he moved a few times to the left. "I heard there would be yellow flags on the straight so knew he would not get me back with DRS. "So I decided to overtake and it was not too difficult."
ZitatKorean GP: Grosjean downplays team controversy after radio messages By Jonathan Noble and Matt Beer Sunday, October 6th 2013, 08:43 GMT
Grosjean downplays team controversyRomain Grosjean insisted there was no controversy over his battle with Lotus team-mate Kimi Raikkonen late in the Korean Grand Prix, despite fraught radio messages.
Raikkonen beat his team-mate to second with a late-race pass at Turn 1.
Radio broadcasts picked up tense conversations between Grosjean and the team over whether he could repass afterwards, culminating in a request for the Frenchman to "smile" on the podium as the matter would be discussed later.
After the race Grosjean played the matter down and said the loss of second place was just down to his own mistake.
"Unfortunately for me and good for Kimi, the safety car came," said Grosjean. "I made a small mistake, my fault, and Kimi passed me and then there were yellow flags so I couldn't use DRS.
"I don't hear most of the [radio] conversation. I was quicker today. It is a track where it is almost impossible to overtake.
"I should have avoided the AstroTurf in Turn 15 and that would be the end of the conversation.
"It was my mistake, it is not the end of the world."
Raikkonen said the pass had been fairly routine.
"He made a mistake in the second-last corner and I got a good run," said the Finn. "I think he moved a few times to the left.
"I heard there would be yellow flags on the straight so knew he would not get me back with DRS.
"So I decided to overtake and it was not too difficult."
Kimi Raikkonen said he deserved his podium at the Korean Grand Prix on merit and it was not down to getting lucky with the timing of the safety car.
After a lacklustre qualifying performance, Raikkonen started from ninth on the grid and worked his way back through the pack, finally passing team-mate Romain Grosjean to take second. He was undoubtedly helped by the first safety car, making up four positions and putting him in place to attack Grosjean at the restart.
But Raikkonen said he was in a strong position to race for a podium even without the safety car.
"We didn't do too badly because we finished second," he said. "People might say it's luck but we put ourselves in a position in the first place. Without the speed we would never have got there.
"The car was just understeering too much all weekend and even today, so I had to look after the front tyre. That was really the limitation of how much I could push and obviously we were always stuck behind the traffic after the pit stops.
"We decided to stop much earlier and I think it was a good move. The safety car helped a little bit but we had the speed and without the safety car we could maybe have run until the end [on those tyres] and still had a podium. It was good but not ideal."
Raikkonen made the move on Grosjean stick on the first lap following the safety car restart, getting a better drive out of the penultimate corner and beating him into Turn 1. The move proved to be crucial and undid the hard work of Grosjean earlier in the race, but Raikkonen said it was not too tricky to pull off.
"He moved two times to the left but I got a good run. He made a mistake in the second to last corner and I got a good run and heard there would be yellow flags at the end of the straight. So I knew he wasn't going to pass me back with the DRS because it's not open with the yellow flags so I thought I would try to overtake and it was not too difficult."
Lotus team principal Eric Boullier says Grosjean was "begging [for] some team orders" to get past Raikkonen: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2013/10/06/b ... ing-curve/ … #F1
ZitatBoullier: Grosjean’s frustration “part of learning curve” 2013 Korean Grand Prix October 6, 2013 at 9:33 am by Keith Collantine
Lotus team principal Eric Boullier says a frustrated Romain Grosjean learned an important lesson after losing second place to Kimi Raikkonen in today’s race.
Raikkonen passed Grosjean for second place on the lap after the first restart. Boullier said Grosjean made a mistake, after which the Lotus driver repeatedly told the team Raikkonen was holding him up.
Boullier came on Grosjean’s radio at one point and told him to “keep racing like it is”.
After the race in another radio message from a different team member which was partially censored Grosjean was told: “We’ll talk about this in the office afterwards but for now big ******* smile on the podium, big ******* smile.”
Boullier said: “Romain gets frustrated obviously because he did a small mistake on the restart after the Safety car and Kimi just past him.”
“I think he was begging some team orders to let him past but he has a mistake and it was a normal racing time.”
“I think he could have been quicker but he was a little upset and he lost concentration so it’s just part of his learning curve,” Boullier added.
ZitatDoin’ It Right - 2013 Korean Grand Prix, Sunday 6th October
Lotus F1 Team scored its third double podium of the season as Kimi Räikkönen took second and Romain Grosjean third in an emphatic team performance at the Korean Grand Prix. Both drivers benefited from strong race pace and drove superbly – including dicing with each other – during a race which saw two safety car periods.
Kimi returns to third place in the Drivers’ Championship on 167 points – displacing Lewis Hamilton – and now lies 28 points behind Fernando Alonso in second. Romain Grosjean remains eighth in the standings on 72 points, 17 away from Felipe Massa in seventh. The team maintains fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship on 239 points from Mercedes’ 283.
• Kimi started from P9 with a scrubbed set of super soft tyres, changing to new mediums on laps 11 and 25. • Romain started from P3 on a scrubbed set of super soft tyres, changing to new mediums on laps 10 and 31.
Kimi Räikkönen, P2, E21-05 “Second place is ok and a good result for the team, but we’re here to win and having to fight your way to the front from a bad starting position is not ideal. Qualifying was pretty awful for me, but it’s difficult to say whether a better grid position would have made the difference. Sebastian was faster than us at the end; not massively, but a little bit for sure and his tyres were fresher too so I think it would have been tough to catch him in any case. We were closer to the Red Bull today than we have been in some races, but not close enough. People might say it was good luck with the safety car, but sometimes these things go with you and others they go against you. We made up some places even before that happened, and if we hadn’t had the speed then we wouldn’t have been in a position to take advantage. You could see at the end that we had more than enough pace to keep the others behind, so I think it’s deserved.”
Romain Grosjean, P3, E21-04 “It’s a fantastic result for the team. Of course, one step higher on the podium would have been better for me and two steps better would have been superb, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Our battle with Lewis [Hamilton] was good and our pace was great, but the two safety car periods hurt our attempts to battle for the win. After the restart I should have been in front of Kimi on the road, but it was my mistake which let him past. I went a bit wide in Turn 15 and got on the Astroturf – which is very slippery – and that let him get a run on me. Then there were yellow flags into Turn 3 so I couldn’t take the place back straight away. Of course, I was asking the team to let me past Kimi as I was on fresher tyres, but they left us to race which is our philosophy of fair play. You lose so much downforce in sectors two and three and obviously our cars are pretty close on performance so it’s pretty hard to pass, but we have to be very happy with a double podium.”
Eric Boullier, Team Principal “Another double podium for the team is a fantastic result and it tastes like a race win this late in the season. Credit to everyone back at Enstone for delivering us extra performance from the long wheelbase car, as any gain towards the end of the year is especially beneficial as we fight for position in both Championships. The race team delivered a great strategy and pit stops, whilst both drivers drove exceptionally well. We have a lot of promise for the remaining races and podiums are certainly on our agenda.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director “A great result for the team. We thought we would be competitive coming into this weekend, and in the end we qualified well and raced extremely well. Romain drove an incredibly strong race, and without the safety car would have taken a very comfortable second place. There was an element of luck for Kimi with the safety car and he certainly made the most of that, before once more demonstrating that he never stops pushing by capitalising on the one mistake made by his team-mate all weekend. It was close between the two, but we let both drivers race to the end which was the right thing to do. All signs look positive for Japan.”
Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader “A fantastic race from both drivers. Romain was very strong in the first part of the race, controlling the pace and managing the fuel and tyres very well. We reused his engine from Singapore and everything worked perfectly. We were on the limit with Kimi’s engine with some of the richer fuel mixes to help him get through the field and maximize performance. A great result all round.”
Great race from Kimi once again! Interesting to see that Kimi was driving with a broken front wing in Q3. I hope qualifying is better for the rest of the season. I would really love to see Kimi win another race, but of course Red Bull are just on another planet.
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Sun Oct 06, 2013 7:36 am
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