Bahrain delivered a superb result for Lotus, with both cars finishing on the podium behind Sebastian Vettel. Heading to Barcelona and the start of the European season this weekend, Team Principal Eric Boullier is convinced that Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean are in the right frame of mind to achieve more.
Formerly known as Renault F1, the Enstone-based outfit had not celebrated a double podium finish since the 2006 season when Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella were able to secure both championship titles. Six years down the line, Boullier remains positive that the new-look squad can returning to winning races.
“Most of all, I remember the faces of Kimi and Romain,” the Frenchman says when looking back to Sakhir. “I liked the fact that they were relieved, but not fully happy. We had just achieved a great result, but they already wanted more. They knew we could have won. Instead of simply enjoying the moment, they were trying to figure out what went wrong and why they were not standing on the first step of this podium. It says a lot about our team’s spirit right now.”
Following the three-day test at Mugello last week, the Formula 1 community is poised to find out whether Lotus can challenge for victory once again.
“We’ve been able to look after our tyres quite well during the races so far but the Barcelona track is very abrasive, especially for the front-left tyre,” Boullier continues. “Maybe we’ll do a better job than our rivals in this area. The only question mark is our performance relative to the temperature; a pattern started to emerge over the first four races, where we seemed to be more and more competitive in hot conditions. We’ll see.”
Friday’s first practice session in Barcelona begins at 10am local time (BST +1) and all of the action can be followed through the interactive GPUpdate.net Live Report.
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Eric Boullier
Romain Grosjean
Kimi Räikkönen
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| Eric Boullier | |||
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