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Lotus F1® Team driver Pastor Maldonado displayed good progress this weekend, equalling his season-best finish so far, during the 10th round of the 2014 Grand Prix Championship which took place at Hockenheim’s GP circuit in Germany. Pastor Maldonado who begun from P18 on super-soft tyres, made slow and steady progress throughout the race. Sticking to a 2-pit stop strategy instead of the anticipated 3-stop, the Venezuelan fought with tenacity, tussling for placement mid-grid. He narrowly missed out on a points finish, slipping two places from P10 in the final laps to finish in P12. It was a disappointing race however for Lotus F1® Team driver Romain Grosjean who had started in P14 on the soft tyre compound. A slick getaway from lights out saw him make 2 places early on, advancing to P12. However he was later forced to retire when a cooling issue on the E22 robbed him of race pace and called an early end to his assault. Romain Grosjean DNF E22-03: “We didn’t have an easy start with the soft tyres and I struggled to warm them up after the safety car too, but our overall pace was quite good today. I suffered from a loss of power due to an issue with our cooling system so was asked to switch off the car. It’s such a shame as we were on a different strategy from our rivals so we looked like we could be on course for scoring points. Sometimes that’s how it goes in motor racing.” Pastor Maldonado DNF E22-01: “It was a tough race from the beginning; the incident in turn one was quite tricky to avoid but then the pace looked consistent. I did my best to manage the tyre degradation, which was quite high, and we were able to do only two stops. Today’s lower temperature helped us there as well. The initial plan included three stops but we had a competitive first stint so we went for plan B which worked well for us today.” Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: " There was great evidence of the team’s spirit over the whole weekend in Hockenheim. We lost our suspension system which has meant a new challenge and some long days adapting the car to work in its new configuration. Despite this, we had good race strategies and looked to be managing the tyres well with the pit stop crew making some fantastically fast tyre changes during the course of the race. Pastor drove impeccably all race and was unlucky not to be rewarded with points. Romain drove superbly too, but we weren’t able to give him a reliable car today. We have improvements planned for Budapest and hope to perform much better there. ” The Hungarian Grand Prix takes place in Budapest on the 27th July.

Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean returned to the podium with Kimi taking second and Romain third in a fast-paced German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. Kimi finished just 1.008 seconds behind race winner Sebastian Vettel, who took his first home Grand Prix victory. Kimi remains in third position in the Drivers’ Championship with 116 points, but closes the gap from Fernando Alonso (123) to seven points. The team was the highest scoring in the Constructors’ Championship today, remaining in fourth place on 157 points, with Ferrari on 180 in third. Kimi started from P5 with a scrubbed set of soft tyres, changing to new medium compound tyres on laps 8 and 24 and a final set of scrubbed soft tyres on lap 49. Romain started from P4 on a scrubbed set of soft tyres, changing to new sets of medium compound tyres on laps 13, 24 and 40. Kimi Räikkönen, P2, E21-03 “We had a pretty good last stint of the race, but the cars are close on performance so it’s difficult to overtake. Maybe some more laps would have helped us, but the race is only 60 laps so you have to do your best with that. After my first stop I was stuck behind a Mercedes for a while, but once I was past the car was pretty good. After the safety car three of us were able to pull away, but we were too close on speed to change the order. It was a good day for the team. Of course, we wanted to win; we couldn’t, but we did score the most points here. The warmer temperatures definitely helped us, so let’s hope for some more hot weather in Budapest.” Romain Grosjean, P3, E21-02 “After some difficult races, everything went right today and it was pretty special when I was leading the race and returning to the podium is naturally a good thing. My car felt great on the first stint with the soft tyres and it’s clear that the summer weather really suits us. Hopefully we’ll have a long summer now in Europe! Letting Kimi past at the end of the race was the sensible thing to do as we were on different strategies and he had more of a chance of going for the win than I did at that point. We didn’t know which tyre would be the best at the end of the race, so we didn’t put all our eggs in one basket.” Eric Boullier, Team Principal "That was a very good race from the team which validates all the hard work which has been going on back at Enstone, so we thank everyone at the factory for their efforts. After three difficult weekends, being on the podium was exactly what we needed. We need to continue like this to make up for lost ground in both championships. The E21 worked very well today and both Kimi and Romain drove superbly. We had a good strategy from the pit wall, some fantastic pit stops, and were it not for losing some time behind both Mercedes, it’s possible that we could have won today. I think we’ll have to ask Pirelli to keep this weekend’s specification of tyres for the rest of the season.” Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director “We’re very happy to be back on the podium again after a short spell of bleak races. Both cars ran faultlessly from start to finish and it did look like we could be able to take the fight to Sebastian [Vettel] but ultimately we didn’t quite manage it. Kimi was held up by Lewis [Hamilton] after his first pit stop but came back fighting at the end of the race. Romain did a fantastic job managing his first set of tyres which enabled him to make some great gains. We did consider running Kimi on a two-stop strategy but we could see the tyre performance dropping. We expected slightly more performance from his final set of soft tyres, but he was right with Seb at the end.” Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader “A great race from both drivers, with incredible pace. It was a shame that the traffic pushed us back from the outright win but a double podium is still a great result, and more than we expected going into the weekend. Engine-wise, it’s been a good Grand Prix, although temperatures were hotter than expected. The result shows the engine-chassis package is back to its best and we’ll look to keep this going to the next race.”

Kimi Räikkönen qualified fourth with Romain Grosjean fifth after a hotly contested qualifying session for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix. Today’s placings make for the team’s second best qualifying performance this season, after qualifying second and sixth for the Malaysian Grand Prix. Kimi Räikkönen, E21-03. Q: P4, 1:30.676. FP3: P6, 1:30.671 “My car was okay today, but in my Q3 lap on the new tyres I struggled to get the fronts up to temperature which meant I lost quite a bit of time in the first sector; probably because there was traffic on my out lap meaning I couldn’t push as much as I wanted. For sure it didn’t help and we probably should have been P3 today, but P4 is still a pretty good place to be for the race.” Romain Grosjean, E21-02. Q: P5, 1:31.242. FP3: P8, 1:30.781 “P5 is a pretty good result, but to be honest I’m a little disappointed with my fastest lap as there were definitely a few tenths lost in the first sector. We struggled a little getting the front tyres working this morning but the car felt really good during qualifying and we improved with every lap. It was a strong performance for the team with Kimi P4 as well, so we’re happy to be back at the front after paying a few unwanted visits to the lower positions recently.” Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: How was qualifying for the team? We’re reasonably happy with today’s performance. Of course, you always want more and we could have got a little more from both cars in the final qualifying session as neither driver posted a good first sector. That said, with P4 and P5 on the grid, we’re happy. How’s it looking for the race? We know that our race simulations yesterday looked good and the forecast is for high temperatures tomorrow, so I think we can look forward to having a strong race. How are the tyres working here? The new rear construction with the Kevlar belt doesn’t appear to be hurting our performance and we’re as competitive as we thought we’d be here so we’ve no worries on that front. Any particular strategy considerations for the race? The medium compound looks to be the favoured one for the race as the soft has a reasonably high performance degradation; such that we have seen Ferrari opt to start on the medium compound as their approach to managing it. It will be interesting to see how that approach works; from our side, we’re pretty happy with starting on the soft.

Romain Grosjean set the fourth fastest time on the opening day of the German Grand Prix weekend, with Kimi Räikkönen a mere five thousandths of a second behind in fifth after a productive day of running at the Nürburgring. The team completed further Device evaluation with Romain in the morning, whilst Kimi tried the latest slimline bodywork which both cars ran with in the afternoon. The latest incarnation of Pirelli’s tyres were used in medium and soft specification today. Technical Programme Notes Romain ran with the Device in the morning to calibrate and evaluate with the current level of downforce. He ran with the slimline spec aero pack in the afternoon. The Device will not appear again this weekend. Kimi ran slimline all day. Pirelli’s medium compound tyre was used in the morning, the medium and soft compound in the afternoon. What We Learned Today The Device data collection exercise in the morning provided an ample sufficiency of data. Soft tyre performance and long run performance were both favourable today, with evident areas for performance gains tomorrow. Kimi Räikkönen, E21-03 Free Practice 1: P5, 1:32.956, 22 laps Free Practice 2: P5, 1:30.848, 27 laps Kimi: “We tried quite a few things today; some were good and some were not, so we have a good idea of what to do tomorrow. Our long run pace wasn’t as good as it could have been as we were running with a different setup which would have taken too long to change back during the session, but we now know which setup works better so it’s not a worry. The rear tyres weren’t much different, but we already knew that from when we tried them in Canada.” Romain Grosjean, E21-02 Free Practice 1: P9, 33.260, 27 laps Free Practice 2: P4, 1:30.843, 32 laps Romain: “We had a pretty good day today. We ran the Device in the morning to gather some data then went back to our previous package for the afternoon, where we played with the setup a little but spent most of the time analysing the new tyres. We made a step forward with the upgrades that were brought to Silverstone, and we’re seeing the benefit here as well. Getting temperature into the tyres can be a bit tricky for us in colder conditions, but today it wasn’t an issue which is a good sign. It’s only free practice, but the car feels ok so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.” Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director “It was a fairly routine day for us. Romain ran the Device in the morning in order to gather more data, which we did, but there is no plan to run it for the rest of the weekend as any potential benefit is only marginal at this track. Kimi concentrated on setup work in the morning using the new slimline aero package. In the afternoon, both cars went with the slimline package. With Kimi’s car we tried a different aero setup at the rear, which didn’t deliver quite the results we wanted. Neither driver was 100% happy with their car today, but we look to be in reasonable shape on the soft tyre and on long runs too. We’ve certainly got some more pace to come from the car, so we’re hoping for a productive day tomorrow.”

Lotus’s Kimiya Sato starred at Germany’s Sachsenring with pole position, two wins from three races, a second place, and two fastest laps. He now leads the championship with 101 points, ahead of team mate Jimmy Ericksson who’s earned 73. The Swede was baulked by traffic in qualifying and was denied a front row slot, starting P3 for Race 1. Meanwhile team-mates Artem Markelov and Sheban Siddiqi had their own issues, a misfire causing the Russian to start 7th while Siddiqi was sick as a dog last weekend and unable to show his true speed. Race 1 saw Ericksson cross the line second behind Sato, with Markelov P4 and Siddiqi retiring due to illness. With the top eight reversed for Race 2, it was Sato again who showed tremendous racecraft, barttling from eighth to second. Ericksson was similarly feisty, starting P7 and finishing third. Markelov took a trip through the gravel at the start of the race and recovered well to finish fifth. Siddiqi, feeling better, finished P10 having started at the back of the grid. Race 3 was another Sato-fest. He beat Gerhard Berger’s nephew, Lucas Auer, and Stig Blomqvist’s son Tom to finish first. Ericksson was fourth, Siddiqi P12, and Markelov was disqualified for a dangerous pass. Timo Rumpfkeil, team principal: “Kimiya did a fantastic and faultless job all weekend and deserves to now lead this championship. It was an epic performance. Jimmy was unlucky not to qualify on the front row. In Race 3 he was involved in some incidents which cost him a podium and some more points. Artem is feeling more and more at home in F3, for this is only his second year of car racing, and by setting the fastest lap in Race 2 he confirmed to me he has the speed to be a winner. There’s a lot more to come from Sheban, who suffered from food poisoning this weekend. Under the circumstances I think P10 in Race 2 was a great result. Overall this was a strong weekend for us, with two wins, three podiums, pole position and all three fastest laps. We’re keen to carry on this momentum and extend our lead in the upcoming races.”