Nurburgring

Lotus ART brought home its best overall result of the season from the Nürburgring circuit, which hosted the 9th and 10th GP3 series races this weekend. After a promising free practice, the team slowed up in qualifying but made up for it brilliantly come race time with a podium and a win for Valtteri Bottas - Lotus ART's second win in 10 races - as well as 4th and 6th place finishes for James Calado.

James and Valtteri both had a very good start from the 9th and 11th positions on the starting grid of the first race and quickly moved up to the leading pack. At the end of the race, they took advantage of a downpour to showcase their talent and finish the race in tight formation, in 3rd and 4th place. The next day, Valtteri raced a blistering first lap which thrust him into first place. The Finnish driver carved out a gap of over 4 seconds over his pursuers, then held his lead until the checkered flag. James had the potential to be evenly-matched with Valtteri but was hit by a competitor who was slapped with a drive-through penalty. Falling back to 20th position, James was long the fastest driver in the race and moved back up to 6th place.

Pedro Henrique Nunes continues making progress, but an error in qualifying forced him to start from 17th position on the starting grid of the first race. He crossed the finish line in 19th place and abandoned Sunday's race after a collision with a rival.

Lotus ART moves up from 5th place to 2nd in the teams' championship, 5 points out from the leader. James and Valtteri are 5th and 6th in the drivers' championship respectively, and 7 and 10 points out of first.

Pedro Nunes

"The raw result does not give justice to the improvement we made, especially in qualifying which is still our weak point. Without a mistake in the second sector I would have been in the top 12 of the starting grid and that's encouraging. The races were tough because of the conditions with rain and the traffic to deal with. My race pace was OK but, I could not put everything together in order to secure a decent result. I'm now looking forward to the Hungarian races to show how good is the progress we made."

Valtteri Bottas

"We can be genuinely happy with the results we got in Germany. We struggled a bit up to the Nurburgring and a win plus a podium, 12 points total, is a nice and well-deserved reward after all the hard work the team did both on track and at the factory. I was a bit disappointed with qualifying but we recovered pretty well in the first race and that was the springboard to a great weekend. I had a good start from P11 and made my way to fourth in the first few laps. I picked up some speed when it rained, I had a great feeling and the car was really fast, so a big thanks goes out to the team. I even fought for the win at one point, but after having taken some risks at the beginning I think it was better to settle for third when the rain was harder as it would have been easy to lose it all in the blink of an eye. I had a great start and first lap on Sunday. I saw the opportunity to gain a lot of positions and I just went for it. I could not believe I was P1 in the back straight already! From then on I tried to keep everything under control and to manage my tyres. I'm back in the fight for the championship and we now have to make sure we secure big points at each race until the very last race in Monza. We continue to work hard to improve our performances on dry conditions. I take one race at a time; we'll do the maths in Italy!"

James Calado

"It's the typical frustrating weekend really as we had the potential to climb on the podium of both races... at least! On the positive side, Lotus ART gave me a strong car in both races and I think I proved myself in difficult conditions. Our position on the starting grid was the low point but we had a good start; we fought hard to come close to the podium. I overtook Quaife-Hobbs in the last lap and missed the podium by a few tenths. I had another good start on Sunday but Vainio hit me from behind in the first lap and I resumed my race 20th or something, some 30 seconds down. I had nothing to lose anymore and I took all the risks to come back with the front runners. The car was flying thanks to the perfect set-up the team gave me and I enjoyed myself a lot. I was 7th on the finish line thanks to some pretty good manoeuvres and I got a little help to enter into the points in the form of a penalty another driver was handed. 6 points is a good result considering how the races developed. I'm 7 points shy of the leader of the championship and everything is still in play."

Frederic Vasseur:

"Qualifying was disappointing but it's in the race where you secure the most points and Lotus ART stepped up when it counted. Valtteri brought home a well-deserved win and podium which put him back in contention for the title. He managed both races with intelligence and control. James could have done at lest as well if he had not been bumped by a competitor in the first lap of the second race. He was the fastest driver on Sunday and made a memorable comeback, keeping a cool head and a heavy foot, without making the slightest mistake. Pedro had the team's best partial times in the first and third sectors, and if it weren't for a slowdown in the second race he could have started in the top 10, and from there looked to secure his first points. We'll take a raincheck. The weekend was all-in-all very positive for Lotus ART. We will have to take advantage of this dynamic to drive the nail home in Hungary."