A distinct absence of adhesion was the downfall for Kimi Räikkönen and Lotus as the Finn struggled his way to seventh on the grid in India. As the Enstone team does not currently possess the budget to keep up with the development rate of others, chances of a second title for the 2007 World Champion have slid away over recent races.
“We changed the car after this morning’s session and we were quite confident heading in to qualifying,” Räikkönen said. “Unfortunately, we didn’t seem to have any grip this afternoon so it was much more difficult than we thought. I’m quite disappointed to be starting from seventh as I thought we had a much better car than that.”
To make matters worse, Romain Grosjean made a mistake on his final lap of Q2 and slipped down to 11th place – meaning he was unable to pass into the final shootout.
“I was expecting better, so I’m a little disappointed,” he began. “However, in terms of strategy P11 has one advantage as you’re the first car that can choose which tyres it will start the race on, and I have a couple of new sets in my pocket for tomorrow. I wish I could have got through into Q3 and lacking two hundredths of a second to make it there was frustrating. I was doing well, but for whatever reason the car snapped on me and I lost time.”
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:25.283 | 13 |
| 2. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:25.327 | 17 |
| 3. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:25.544 | 23 |
| 4. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:25.659 | 21 |
| 5. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:25.773 | 21 |
| 6. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:25.857 | 18 |
| 7. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | 01:26.236 | 25 |
| 8. | S. Perez | Sauber | 01:26.360 | 23 |
| 9. | P. Maldonado | Williams | 01:26.713 | 24 |
| 10. | N. Rosberg | Mercedes | no time | 23 |
| Full results | ||||
| Kimi Räikkönen | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Kimi Räikkönen photos | |||
| Romain Grosjean | |||
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| More Romain Grosjean photos | |||
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