While You Were Washing The Car This Weekend…

Formula One – Lotus Renault GP - Turkish Grand Prix

Qualifying: Vitaly Petrov – P7 / Nick Heidfeld – P9

Race: Nick Heidfeld – P7 / Vitaly Petrov – P8

Championship: 4th – 42 points

Lotus Renault GP left Istanbul Park with ten championship points – the first double points finish of the season - after a hard-fought race saw an improvement on the starting position.

With 82 pitstops and dozens of thrilling overtaking manoeuvres the race was breathless. Vitaly Petrov overtook Michael Schumacher on Lap 2 but the Mercedes driver turned in on him, causing damage to both cars. Schumi was quick to apologise after the race. Vitaly soldiered on, before jousting with team-mate Nick Heidfeld through the final turns on Lap 12. There was some anxious foot-tapping on the Lotus Renault pitwall, but the drivers gave each other just enough room, even if there was some gesticulating from the cockpit!

The team employed a four-stop strategy, which turned out to be the optimal strategy. On the final lap, Vitaly pulled a daring move on Toro Rosso's Sebastien Buemi to finish eighth while Nick was able to cross the line ahead in seventh.

Vitaly Petrov: "It was an interesting race and strategically it was challenging for all the teams. I think what really affected my position today was the collision with Michael [schumacher] early in the race. He hit my car and then I was stuck behind some slower drivers after the first pit stop. If this had not happened, my race would have been much stronger and I could have pulled away. However, I was pleased to overtake Sebastien [buemi] at the end, which took me back into eighth. We must be positive, we have both cars in the points and it's another ten points for the team."

Nick Heidfeld: "It's always good to score points, but I think I could have finished even higher up today, even though I started in P9. I am not totally happy with the race - I was stuck in traffic for quite a while, overtaking was difficult and Vitaly made contact with me - but my pace was good, especially at the end of the race when the car was light on the soft tyres. I also think our strategy was the right one. Overall, to finish in P7 and take six points for the team is good, given that I did not qualify in a higher position."

GP2 – Lotus-ART – Turkish Grand Prix

Qualifying: Jules Bianchi (JB) – P4 / Esteban Gutierrez (EG) – P24

Race 1: JB– P3 / EG – DNF Race 2: JB– P7 / EG– P10

Championship: 5th – 6 points

Turkey saw the GP2 class of 2011 do battle for the first time. In the feature race, Esteban Gutierrez tangled with Ocean's Kevin Mirocha on the run down to Turn 1. A separate incident on the first lap triggered a four-lap safety period and, once the race was underway again, Jules Bianchi was passed by Super Nova's Luca Filippi for fourth place after the Frenchman out-braked himself trying to put a move on third-placed Dani Clos. In the pits, Jules struggled to pull away and lost places to Arden's Josef Kral and Trident's Stefano Coletti which he then regained. On the last lap he skillfully passed Racing Engineering's Clos and Addax' Guido van der Garde to take P3.

In Race 2 there was more first lap drama when Jules was tapped into a spin by Dams' Romain Grosjean, leaving the Lotus-ART driver to fight his way back through the field from 23rd. It was a similar story for Esteban who, after Saturday's crash, started 24th and managed to sprint through to tenth.

Jules Bianchi: "It wasn't an easy weekend! In Race 1 I made a normal start but Clos did a really good one, and then I tried to overtake him and did a mistake in corner 12, and Filippi overtook me at corner one. The first set wasn't good for me, I had a bit of oversteer, but anyway we were P5, so it wasn't too bad. I wanted to have some points for this race but after the pits I did a mistake and put on the anti-stall twice, so I came out around Kral and Coletti, I think, and I had to overtake them. I used my tyres a bit too much on this first lap, so it was not an easy race: I did some good moves but anyway we finished third, so it's a good way to start the championship. Sunday was frustrating, getting pitched into a spin at Turn 14. Battling my way from 23rd to seventh was a big challenge in the 23 lap race, and I had some good battles."

Esteban Gutierrez: "It was a little frustrating what happened in Race 1, but such things happen from time to time. On the other hand it's not a huge deal, we have to take the positive from the experience and continue working. My mission for Race 2 was to finish, and we did so passing 14 cars in the process."

ILMC – Lotus Jetalliance - 1000KM of Spa-Francorchamps

Race: Car 64 (Rich-Slingerland) – P9 / Car 65 (Hirschi-Rossiter-Mowlem) – DNF

The first competitive outing for the new Lotus Evora GTE was encouraging, with Martin Rich and Oskar Slingerland getting Car 24 to the finish line of the 1000km marathon, despite only totaling 450km in pre-race testing. Car 65 of Jonathan Hirschi, James Rossiter and Johnny Mowlem was less fortunate, suffering a blown engine after 21 laps.

Car 64 managed to clock 119 laps during the six-hour-long endurance race, finishing ninth in the LM GTE Pro category. This came despite a mid-race crash into the barriers at Pouhon, costing the team three laps in repairs, and an even more time-consuming gearbox issue after the car stuck in gear. The team changed the transmission's compressor and applied additional cooling before sending the Evora out again.

The next race will be the Le Mans 24 Hours on June 11-12, and the Lotus marque is thrilled to be returning to this most legendary of events.

Jan Kalmar, Team Manager, Lotus Jetalliance: "It's a pain that only one car finished but, to be honest with you, given the lack of testing we had going into this race I think it went extremely well. One thousand kilometres is double the distance the car had been run before. There is an awful lot we need to improve on – engine, cooling and handling – but this is to be expected given the early stage of our Evora GTE program. On the whole, I think we have a lot to be optimistic about. Our goal was to finish, not set lap records."

Claudio Berro, Director of Motorsport, Group Lotus: "Overall, a very positive weekend's racing for Group Lotus. It was good to kick off to Lotus-ART's GP2 campaign with a podium courtesy of Jules Bianchi. In F1, Lotus Renault GP scored its first double-points finish of the year. And at Spa-Francorchamps the Lotus Evora GTE achieved a lot of mileage which was our goal ahead of tackling Le Mans. Things are shaping up nicely for this Summer."