Raikkonen: “Out of Q3 by choice”

Lotus finished Q3 in Bahrain in seventh place with Romain Grosjean, but thanks to a bold tactic he could recover many positions even with the big one excluded from the last heat, Kimi Raikkonen.

“It was a good result for the team, we have always gone as far as Q3 in every race weekend this season and I think we can be satisfied with how the car is going”, explained Grosjean. “If I had made a small mistake on my flying lap maybe I could have been even higher. There's a big contrast here compared to the conditions we saw in China, and I think we can be proud of how we adapted the setup. Today we were perhaps a little further behind than we would have liked, but our race pace seems good and with the gaps so close tomorrow should be very interesting", concluded the Frenchman.

Kimi Raikkonen, 11th and out of Q3, instead explains the gamble taken by Lotus, which puts it in good condition for the race: “We were very competitive today and could have easily gone through to the final session with one more run, but we thought it was worth taking the risk of only doing one lap in Q2 and saving new sets of tires for the race.”, explained the Finn. “Managing the tires will be the priority tomorrow, so while it was a gamble to get into Q3, hopefully it can be a strategy that will pay off in the race. We knew we would all be close and of course we always want to be as high up the grid as possible, but there were two options and we went and did what we believe will allow us to get the best result on Sunday. There are no points awarded on Saturday, so let's see what happens tomorrow.", concluded the former Ferrari driver.

Lorena Bianchi