Here’s what the Lotus boys have to say ahead of this weekend’s upcoming Korean Grand Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus

“Let’s hope we are able to maintain the strong form from Sunday in Singapore. The car felt good for the whole race and it was a nice feeling racing too. The main focus is to keep this positive feeling and benefit from it in the next races. Last year was my first visit (to Korea) and it’s quite a tricky circuit to learn quickly, but I felt comfortable with it after a few laps. When the car is right, you can go well there. Last year we saw it’s a good place to race with a good car.

“The main target is to have a better weekend overall compared to what we saw in Singapore. Obviously, we didn’t have the best qualifying and it makes things easier if you start in the top ten. My back’s better than it was on Saturday in Singapore which is when it didn’t feel too good. It’s not the first time I’ve had a problem, as there have been some issues with my back for a long time. For sure, we will have to see how it is when I get out on track on Friday in Korea.”

Romain Grosjean, Lotus

“Last year was my first time at the Korea International Circuit and it’s quite an interesting place. It wasn’t so hard to learn, although there are three quite different parts to it with the long straight in sector one, high and medium speed corners in sector two and then the street course nature of the final sector. The trickiest parts are definitely Turns 11 and 12 which are not easy to get exactly right, but overall it’s not too bad and I think the E21 should go well there.

“I’m feeling pretty positive; Lotus had a good car in Singapore and we should have a good car in Korea.
Qualifying in the top three so late in the season shows that we still have good strength in our package, so if we can show comparable pace at the next few races it’ll be a real strength for us.

“The back-to-back races can be quite tiring, but equally they work pretty well logistically as we stay on a similar time zone for a couple of weeks; certainly with Korea and Japan. It’s also quite nice to be able to see some of the countries we visit with a little bit of time between the races. It’s not so nice to be away from your family of course, but it makes for an interesting end to the season with the six races so close together.”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director
“There’s a nice long straight benefiting the DRS effect, meaning there’s a good chance to see overtaking in the race. The layout has a mix of different sections but they flow together well. We see some decent straights in the first section followed by a few interesting corners – some high speed – in the second section, before moving into an almost street-circuit feel through the final part of the track with its stop-start nature and close proximity walls. Although there are good long straights, the number of high- and medium-speed corners means you have to run with a reasonable level of downforce which should certainly be beneficial for us.

“The mixed nature of the track means that compromises are made, and the fact that the circuit isn’t used very much aside from for the Grand Prix weekend means that we should see a reasonable amount of track evolution. The weather can also be quite a challenge, with reasonably extreme temperature variations possible. These factors give the engineers plenty of different considerations as they seek the best setup, but in terms of what’s needed from the car, it’s not a circuit which places a particular premium on one aspect. You need a good all-round package with strong straight line speed and stability, decent traction and change of direction, but also good low speed performance tempered with that.”