Sebastian Vettel may have taken pole position, but hot conditions and impressive long run pace favor the Lotuses. The German expects to be fighting Raikkonen and Grosjean on Sunday afternoon.
Vettel has won the last two races at Valencia from pole and is hoping to make it a hat-trick on Sunday. However, the unpredictable nature of this season means Vettel is not taking anything for granted.
Romain Grosjean and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen are widely tipped as a dark horses for race victory because of the Lotus's performance in hot weather and race conditions. "Lotus have proven in Bahrain that they will be there in hot conditions. Grid position is important but maybe not as important [as it used to be].", reckons Vettel.
However, the circuit in Valencia does not offer many overtaking possibilities. Jenson Button is not expecting to make progress on his grid position. Still, the Briton also expects Lotus to fight for victory tomorrow. "The only people I would say can maybe move up will be the Lotuses., said Button. His team-mate, Lewis Hamilton shares his views: "The Lotuses look massively competitive, I think they're going to be the ones to watch out for tomorrow."
Romain Grosjean declared fourth on the grid a good result for Lotus despite looking like having the pace to challenge for pole position.
At the end of Q2 Grosjean was the quickest driver and with track temperatures high the conditions seemed to be suiting Lotus. However, in Q3 Grosjean saw his best time beaten by Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado to knock him back on to the second row. Despite that, Grosjean was not disappointed, pointing out that it was his second best qualifying performance of the season.
"The only time I've been better on the grid was in Melbourne when we were P3," Grosjean said. "Monaco we were P5, here we're P4 so it's getting better. It's not as good as the Red Bulls today, which were flying but again we are consistent at the front. There's no race where we are really up and another when we are down. So it's good, the race pace looks good from yesterday which is interesting for tomorrow. We have to discuss some of the strategy but I think without compromising our race set-up we managed to get a good qualy lap today."
When asked if Lotuses long run pace meant this could be the race that it secures its first victory this season, Grosjean said it could be but added that a win wasn't the be all and end all.
"It might be the one, as the next one might be the one or the next one again. It depends on circumstances, it depends on a lot of things. If I was starting tomorrow without thinking about the win it wouldn't be right, but I'm not focused on only winning the race. If we can then I will do it, if we cannot then I'll take the points, the podiums or whatever we can get. Every result is important for the championship, we are fighting with Ferrari who is behind us and with McLaren there is one in front and one behind. So we have a good chance to score good points and that's the main objective."
No comments:
Post a Comment