Raikkonen, meanwhile, notes small step forward in his qualy struggles
Sunday 27 October 2013 09:53, UK
Romain Grosjean conceded he and Lotus had probably been guilty of being a "little bit too brave" during Q1 at the Indian GP in the wake of the strategic mistake that has compromised his promising weekend.
Admitting Lotus is again down on the kind of top speed required to make easier headway through the order on Sunday, Grosjean said he would now give it his all to salvage a strong result in the race. "You never know - we've seen Kimi starting P13 and finishing P3 in Singapore. For sure I will not lead the race in the first corner unless I have a big jump start!" he joked. "We try to get the best strategy we can get. Option tyre is clearly not a good tyre for here. They run out of grip after one lap, even sometime before. So for sure we don't want to spend much time on them. We'll see what tyre we start on and just go for maximum attack in the first few laps and try to get some places. He added: "It's not the end of the world. It's not good, it's not good for the constructors' and it's clearly not what we were expecting. We've been maybe a little bit too brave today. But surely the situation is not the same [as before his upturn in form]. I've proven that we were able to do it and we did some strong races. We had a very good weekend until here." Grosjean's Q1 demise means that for the first time since Monza, and only the second time in the last seven events, Kimi Raikkonen will start a race as Lotus's highest-placed driver on the grid. The Finn had admitted in Thursday's Drivers' Press Conference that rediscovering his early-season single lap pace was a priority this weekend, and after achieving his best grid position since July on Saturday, Raikkonen noted a small improvement. "It was overall a little bit better but it's not still as I want it. There are still some issues but it's been a bit better today," he said. "Usually we do better in the race and that's the aim and we have to see what happens tomorrow. There are a lot of different ways of doing the race, there's a big difference in tyres, so we'll just see how it goes." Although the Finn starts on the more brittle soft tyres, and could therefore be vulnerable to the medium-tyre shod Fernando Alonso behind, he gave a characteristically phlegmatic response when asked if he had considered starting on the more durable rubber. "We could have done anything we wanted but obviously it's hard to say which way it's going to go," Raikkonen added. "We will see tomorrow and then after the race but you have to use both tyres so I don't think it's going to make a difference."
