Lotus Looking for Better Qualifying Pace

Lotus has looked very good with their race pace, but their qualifying is definitely something that needs a lot of improvement.  Just go back to Bahrain where Lotus had their best result with Kimi finishing 2nd, and Grosjean finishing 3rd.  Their Grid positions were 11th for Kimi and 7th for Grosjean.  So that would have almost definitely been a 1st & 2nd for Lotus and that would have been a gigantic momentum for the team.

Grosjean came very close last weekend in Canada to securing a victory,just needing a few more laps and he would have passed Lewis.  Once again you can look at qualifying and realize that it was a major factor.  Grosjean was 7th on the grid.

"The gap to the win is not that big," said Grosjean. "We need to qualify better, that is not our strength this season but we are working on it. I think Friday and Saturday were quite difficult for us in Canada but we have been learning a lot about the car so it's good that we now have that in our pocket for the next races.


"We have to go into every weekend aiming for a win; approaching a race in any other way is like putting yourself on the back foot from the start. I'm mainly hoping for an improvement in qualifying, a good start and then we'll see what happens from there. It's great to be fighting at the front and that's always what we want to do, but we're in a tight battle this season so of course the most important thing is to score some good points again for the team. If we have a strong weekend from the start then I think we are capable of fighting for a podium or even a win. We'll see after qualifying where we are; hopefully we can get another good result!"

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen who has 2 podiums to his name this season in Bahrain (2nd) and Spain (3rd), is hoping for better qualifying pace as well.

"Qualifying is going to be very, very important again here. Obviously, there will be an advantage to starting on the clean side of the track as the streets are only used as a circuit once each year,"  said Raikkonen . "It's not an easy place to overtake and we'll have to see how much help the DRS will be.


"Valencia is all about being very consistent. It's so easy to lose time with small mistakes. Valencia is all about being very consistent. It's so easy to lose time with small mistakes."


So  it's looking like Lotus will be trying for a quicker car setup for qualifying, and think that it could help them get a win in Valencia coming up.  Can we have an 8th different winner in 8 different races, and keep the dream season going?  I can easily see Kimi or Grosjean at the top step of the podium.  We will have to wait a few days and see at the European Grand Prix.