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Lotus GP secured another 2 podium finishes at the third round of the 2012 GP3 Championship when Aaro Vainio and Daniel Abt delivered second place finishes in race one and two respectively around the streets of Valencia in Spain. After topping the free practice session, two and half tenths faster than his second placed Lotus teammate, Conor Daly, Vainio qualified third on the grid with Daly in seventh and Abt in tenth. However, a ten placed grid drop for Daly saw Daniel Abt start from ninth place. Right from the start of race one, Vainio was on a mission and snatched P2 off the lights and never looked back. Daly’s woes continued when after lining up 16th due to his ten place grid drop, he received yet another penalty for jumping the start. He was up to 13th at the time. However thanks to some strong racing and an eventful race, he crossed the line in 11th. Daniel Abt had a battle of his own as he fought tooth and nail for his sixth place finish, the victor of a major tussle with Kevin Ceccon. While the ORT driver managed to actually get past on several occasions, he would then out-brake himself and give Daniel back the position. Sunny conditions continued for race two where Abt made a brilliant start from third on the grid and he was in the lead down the straight, however Niederhauser squeezed back past to regain his position as head of the race and Daniel drove a brilliant race to cross the line close behind him in second place. Sadly, there were more problems for Conor Daly as he was mixed up in a first lap incident involving two other drivers, putting all three out of the race. As a result of the confusion, Vainio lost a place to Mitch Evans but he reclaimed the place only to lose it again when he overshot his braking point. He crossed the line in seventh place overall. As the series heads to the home of Motorsport, Silverstone, Vainio is second in the drivers’ championship, four points behind first on 74 while Daniel Abt moves into third with 42 and Daly drops to 11th with 23 points to his name. Lotus GP is second in the team standings on 139 points, just 12 shy of first place. Daniel Abt: I am really happy with my second place after a very difficult start to the weekend with speed problems on the straight that made me really slow. But everyone in the team really gave their best to help and try and fix the problem. which is fine now I believe. On Saturday, I had a tough race defending 6th place every lap. In race 2 I had a really good start which nearly put me into the lead. In the end it was P2, which is still good and being P3 in the championship makes me really happy. More points to take in the next races! Conor Daly: Well, this is definitely a weekend to forget between the penalty and my mistakes. I qualified P7 but saved a set of new tyres. Alas, I stalled and got a drive through penalty because of a jump start. I am so thankful that I am driving for the Lotus GP team. All the guys work so hard and give me such a great car to drive. I am learning from my mistakes and things will be much better at Silverstone! Aaro Vainio: P3 was not too bad in qualifying even though we had good pace on Friday. We changed our strategy a little bit for qualifying and the good thing was that I was on the clean side of the track. I had a good start and it was quite close on the first lap but then we pulled away. I was really quick in the first and middle part of the race but I made a mistake and lost a second and a half. From then on, I tried to cool down so I could secure the fastest lap but I made another small mistake and backed off because to finish second was a very good result. Unfortunately I did not finish in front of Evans on Sunday but I'm just 4 points behind him in the championship, which will be long. We have to stay focused and be consistently in the points. Frederic Vasseur: All in all we've been competitive with our three drivers and we got it right with the car and the tyres. Having said that we missed a bit of performance to fight for both wins but the overall result is good with Aaro and Daniel 2nd and 3rd in the championship. They've been strong and in control. Conor was very fast but it was always going to be tough starting so far back on the grid in the first race.

Lotus GP added another win and second place to their 2012 GP2 Championship stats with Mexican racer Esteban Gutierrez securing victory in the feature race at the Valencia street circuit in Spain this weekend and teammate James Calado finishing second in the sprint race. Round six was help under hot and sunny conditions, however while the sun shone off track, action and chaos prevailed on track. Starting fifth on the grid after a penalty, Gutierrez persevered through three safety cars to secure his first feature race victory. The extreme heat took its toll on everyone with one after the other being affected in some way. While battling for second place, the Mexican driver had an incident with van der Garde at the hairpin, causing both to run wide and lose places. The chaos continued, in the pit lane and on the circuit but Gutierrez kept his head, however at the restart he attempted to make a move on Leimer just before the start/finish line, they touched, ran wide, but thankfully resumed his race with no damage done. With chaos continuing behind him, Gutierrez finally took first place from his teammate to secure the win. Unfortunately, a trip into the barriers saw his second race of the weekend come to a very premature end. Meanwhile, teammate James Calado, was on course for the victory but was forced to give it away in the final laps. After securing a brilliant pole position and driving a brilliantly controlled race, leading the event almost from start to finish, he was forced to pit under the final safety car and hand the win to his teammate. Due to driver penalties from race one, James was promoted to eighth and pole position for the second race. Once again he led almost all the way, only to have the victory snatched away once again in the final laps due to his tyres degrading, leaving him to finish a close second. James is now third int eh championship with 95 points while Esteban sits in sixth with 87. Lotus GP is leading the team’s championship with 182 points. Esteban Gutierrez: After a couple of tough races, my main goal was to get back the feeling I had in the car this winter and to fight for pole was a little win in itself. I respected the steward decisions to hand me a grid penalty. P5 was not so bad and I had a good start from the clean side of the track. I tried to enjoy myself, the car, the work with the team and the race. I gave it my all and overtook some guys with a bit of a risk but sometimes you just have to go for it if you want to win. I feel sorry for James because he deserved to win but it's a great momentum for me personally and for the team too. We have to use this positive energy to fight at the front for the next races. James Calado: Pole position was great but a bit unexpected as most of the drivers set their fastest laps with the harder compound. I think it's fair to say that I dominated the weekend from qualifying up to the safety car. It destroyed a 16 or something second gap I opened up and there was not one but three safety cars and I still had to make my compulsory pit stop. We lost a well-deserved win but that’s racing. Afterwards the good news was that I was promoted to pole position in the second race. On Sunday, I led most of the race but ran out of tyres at the end. Haryanto and I came side by side and I gave him enough room but he locked his brakes and crashed into me. Fortunately I could go on and this podium is a decent recovery after the disappointment of the first race. Frederic Vasseur: On one hand there's the satisfaction of a win and a podium, on the other the frustration for James as he got unlucky. We were much faster than the others and it was good to keep him on track to widen the gap, but the safety car ruined his race because it entered the track when he was in the last corner before making his pit stop. He did great with what was not the best set of tyres on Sunday and his podium is well deserved. Esteban fought hard and well, he was extremely fast and for once he was a bit lucky on Saturday. Bad luck was back on Sunday when he could do nothing to avoid a car that had just crashed into the wall ahead of him.

Daniel Abt took 2nd place in today's race 2 of the GP3 Series in Valencia. Aaro Vainio added some more points to his total after finishing 7th. Conor Daly had to retire after a contact during the first lap.

James Calado couldn’t do better than 2nd in the second GP2 Series race of the week-end in Valencia. The british driver led from the start but his tyres were gone and he couldn’t save his position. Esteban Gutierrez didn’t have to worry about his tyres as he was forced to retire following the chaos of turn 1 after the start.

Lotus F1 Team secured another podium finish thanks to a searing performance from Kimi Räikkönen to finish second in today’s European Grand Prix. The Finn was terrific through the traffic and was able to challenge at the front right to the end of the race. For Romain Grosjean, hopes of another podium were dashed after an alternator failure at two thirds race distance whilst running second. Kimi and Romain are now sixth and seventh in the Drivers’ Championship. The team remains third in the Constructors’ standings ahead of Ferrari, despite being the 11th team in terms of race laps completed this year. Lotus F1 Team still holds the second highest total in terms of podiums this year (5), behind McLaren (6). Kimi is now the driver to have contested the greatest number of laps this season, along with Fernando (Alonso) and Nico (Rosberg): 498 in total. Kimi sits third in terms of podiums clinched this year (3), behind Lewis (Hamilton) and Fernando (Alonso) with 4. Both drivers started on used sets of soft compound Pirelli tyres. Kimi stopped on lap 14 for more used softs as did Romain two laps later. Both drivers changed to new medium tyres under the safety car on lap 28. Kimi Räikkönen, P2, E20-05 "Second place is okay but the win is what I really wanted. We didn’t quite have the pace for it today. I got a good start but I was blocked by Pastor (Maldonado) at the first right-hander and lost quite a few places which put me a bit behind. We made a good recovery from that position and had quite a hard fight with a few people - overtaking and being overtaken. I couldn’t get the tyres up to temperature quickly enough after the safety car, and I made a small mistake on the re-start lap too. I was able to fight back as we had good race pace again. Today was close but the race win was just out of reach.” Romain Grosjean, DNF, E20-04 “Basically the car lost power and switched off. I couldn’t even call my engineer on the radio as the radio was dead. The race was almost perfect up until that point: we had a good start and a good strategy. I don’t think we were that far from our first win. The positives of this weekend are that we battled right at the front and we showed good pace. Sebastian (Vettel) was very strong and I don’t know if we could have caught him. When he had his issue, I was in second place behind Fernando (Alonso) and it was then that I thought we could challenge for the lead because we knew that our tyre degradation was going to be less than his. Unfortunately fate decided otherwise…” Eric Boullier, Team Principal "It’s a good result for the team and for Kimi. Second brings a lot of points, and we also didn’t lose ground on the teams ahead of us in the championship standings. On the other side of the coin, it’s been a disappointing day for Romain as he was in such a good position for at least a podium finish. This is racing, and we will work closely with our partners to ensure we don’t see a failure like this again in the future. Both drivers and the team worked very well this weekend and we have shown that if we achieve a good qualifying position we can fight for the win.” Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director “I’m very happy for the team to be on the podium again with a strong second position from Kimi. I’m sorry for Romain as he was in a good position before what we believe was an alternator failure resulted in a lack of fuel pressure, causing his car to stop. He was right in the fight to be on the podium again so that was unfortunate. Our tyres held up well against the opposition and we did see overtaking once the tyres of other cars dropped away. It was quite a straight-forward call for the final pit stop under the safety car, and we could see that there was enough space between both cars to double stop them. Both drivers did very good jobs today. We know we need to look at getting heat into the tyres quicker after a safety car, but otherwise a very strong weekend.” Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader “Second position for Kimi shows the strength of the car in race conditions. We have to apologise to Romain however, who could also have got a very decent result here as well. The alternator failed at about two thirds distance and the car stopped due to no electrical power. We will look into this thoroughly and see what happened in this instance.”

Lotus GP won Race 1 in Valencia, courtesy of Esteban Gutierrez. James Calado led most of the race but saw his hopes ruined by the safety car. Race 2 will take place tomorrow morning.

Lotus GP had a good overall result in the first race of the GP3 Series in Valencia. Aaro Vainio climbed on the second step of the podium while he started 3rd. Daniel Abt put some good defensive moves to keep his 6th place. Conor Daly ended 11th after starting 16th and having received a penalty for jump start.

Lotus GP put all its cars in the Top 10 during the GP3 qualifying session. Aaro Vainio fought for the pole position during the whole session but ultimately ended 3rd, less than a tenth off the top spot. Conor Daly did the 7th fastest lap but he will be at the back of the grid following his 10 place grid penalty. Daniel Abt ended 10th and will start 9th as Daly will move back. The race will start at 17h20.

Romain Grosjean went fourth fastest whilst Kimi Räikkönen was just eight thousandths of a second behind with the fifth quickest time in a searing qualifying session on the streets of Valencia for tomorrow’s European Grand Prix. Kimi Räikkönen, E20-05. Q: P5, 1:38.513. FP3: P3, 1:38.759. “It was very close in qualifying, especially in Q2, so it’s good to be fifth on the grid. The car felt good. If we could have improved just a little bit on my last lap then we could have gained a couple of places, but it is an improvement on last time out so I’m very happy with that. We found a few good things with the setup this morning to make the car easier to drive. I’m looking forward to tomorrow. The car usually goes well in the race when it’s hot, so let’s see what we can do.” Romain Grosjean, E20-04. Q: P4, 1:38.505. FP3: P2 1:38.655. “Today we got pretty much the most out of the car that we could have. P4 is a good position for the start of the race but of course you want always more and to do better. Sebastian did an unbelievable lap and today we could not have matched it. We have improved our qualifying performance but there is still room to do better. Tyre degradation will be more important than what we saw at the last race. There will be 57 laps in hot conditions on Sunday; we will see what we can do for a good race tomorrow.” Alan Permane, Director of Trackside Operations: “We’ve come from much further back on the grid than P4 or P5 and finished very well.” How do you assess today’s qualifying performance? “We’re very happy with today’s performance and both drivers have done an excellent job. Fourth and fifth positions on the grid are excellent places to start and we know the E20 has demonstrated very strong race pace at the majority of circuits this season. I’m sure tomorrow will be no exception.” Has there been a particular focus on qualifying this weekend? “We haven’t done anything radically different from our approach at previous Grands Prix. We’ve certainly had a smoother weekend so far than we did last time out in Montréal, and we seem well suited on the soft tyres. We’ve looked at the data and given greater consideration to qualifying pace, but our race preparations remain the same.” What are the strategy considerations for tomorrow? “We’ve come from much further back on the grid than P4 or P5 and finished very well, so we have good confidence heading into tomorrow’s race. That said, overtaking is very difficult here even with DRS, so we’re not expecting an easy race from that perspective. It’s likely to be a very hot race which will give the tyres a hard time and we’re confident in those conditions. It’s open for a one, two, or three stop strategy tomorrow, so let’s see what happens.”

Lotus GP had his best qualifying session of the year so far today : Pole position for James Calado and P3 for Esteban Gutierrez. Both Lotus GP drivers did a good job this morning during the practice session and they took out the best of their car this afternoon in a very tight qualifying session. James and Esteban are now in a very good position to score big points in tomorrow race 1 that will start at 15h40.

Lotus GP took a good start to its Valencia week-end having two out of its three cars at the top of the time sheet. Aaro Vainio signed the best time followed by teammate Conor Daly. However, the american took a 10 place grid penalty for Race 1 following his accident in Monaco. Daniel Abt couldn't do better than 13th this morning but he remains confident for the week-end.

Seven races, seven winners... Will this weekend be Lotus's time? The Lotus E20 has been arguably the most consistently fast car so far during this thrilling 2012 season. Kimi Räikkönen has already picked up a third and a second place, and sits sixth in the standings (60). Romain Grosjean has achieved the same podium placings and is just two points behind his team-mate. The next step is clear. ON TRACK: Valencia Street Circuit winds around a harbour and across a dynamic-looking swing bridge, which is welded shut, forcing yacht captains to get their berths in the harbour before the track action begins. Valencia has one notable straight, which is one more than Monaco, and encourages overtaking - though we’ve seen little of it in the two years since the track appeared on the calendar. As with any street circuit, there are more bumps than on a purpose built track, and the first proper corner – Turn 2 – is made trickier by being both bumpy and tight. The next stretch is rather stop-start in nature down to Turn 8, with the emphasis on traction rather than aerodynamic grip. Between Turns 10 and 12 the cars run flat-out for 12 seconds. There are 25 corners in total, which make this circuit physically challenging over the course of 57 laps, and it’s easy to make a mistake. Due to its coastal location, a strong sea breeze can cause balance problems. Local start time: 14h00 Number of laps: 57 Circuit length: 5.419km Race distance: 308.883km Lap record: Timo Glock (Toyota, 2009), 1m38.683 WHAT THE DRIVERS SAY: Kimi Räikkönen: “Valencia is a street circuit, but the layout is not like Albert Park, Monaco or Montreal. It’s definitely the fastest track of these four. It’s likely to be hot and we seem to go well in warm conditions so that’s what we’ll be hoping for. Qualifying is going to be very, very important again here. Obviously, there will be an advantage to starting on the clean side of the track as the streets are only used as a circuit once each year. It’s not an easy place to overtake and we’ll have to see how much help the DRS will be. Valencia is all about being very consistent. It’s so easy to lose time with small mistakes. I’ve never won in Valencia, so it’s a good target. Last time I raced in Valencia I finished in third after starting from sixth on the grid, which was not too bad.” Romain Grosjean: “The gap to the win is not that big. We need to qualify better, that is not our strength this season but we are working on it. I think Friday and Saturday were quite difficult for us in Canada but we have been learning a lot about the car so it’s good that we now have that in our pocket for the next races. I made my Formula One debut in Valencia 2009, so it brings back good memories and it’s a circuit I like anyway. I had a podium in the first GP2 race here in 2008 and was leading the second race until somebody took me out! Then I managed to win in 2011, so it’s a circuit I’m comfortable with for sure. It definitely helps to know the track already as it usually takes less time to get up to speed and you have a rough idea of where the braking points, turn ins and so on will be. There’s always a great atmosphere too; the city centre is obviously very close, and the America’s Cup harbour is a really nice place to go. The track itself it quite interesting; there are a few second / third gear corners, some high speed sectors, heavy braking zones and usually good weather too so on paper it’s a circuit that could suit us quite well. Hopefully this will be the case!” OFF TRACK: Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences is a masterpiece surrounded by mirror-calm waters. L’Hemispheric is built in the shape of an eye and features an IMAX cinema, planetarium and laserium, while the Principe Felipe Science Museum behind it resembles the skeleton of a whale. Also part of the City of Arts and Sciences, L’Oceanographic has sharks, Beluga whales, walruses, sea lions, penguins and manta rays, which inhabit nine underwater towers. The marine park simulates tropical seas and polar oceans, and also has a spectacular dolphinarium. The piranha club is popular with spectators too, but you have to trot down to the F1 paddock to see that. Monty Python fans will be thrilled to discover that the (alleged) Holy Grail resides here, in Valencia’s Old Quarter at the Santa Maria Cathedral. Whether it really is the cup used by JC and his disciples at the Last Supper is disputed, but plenty of scholars and historians believe it’s the most likely candidate. Spitting distance from the paddock, Valencia’s proudest tapas bar, Casa Montana, is also one of the least expensive. Order their delicious anchovies and cod fish croquettes. Wine tastings are often organized. Participants are requested not to wear perfume, in case it throws them off the scent. Café Infanta is a mentally eclectic bar, which draws every demographic known to man, all in search of a good time. Décor amounts to a clutter of cinematic memorabilia. Specialities include the Café Infanta vodka-based cocktail, and whisky and gin mixes. Music ranges from jazz to opera and disco to salsa. Should you visit on Wednesday you’ll find an antiques auction begins at midnight. Bizarre. Club Las Animas Puerto is right on the circuit, down at Turn 7, and actually features a grandstand built into the dance floor. Guests can watch the race with a refreshing Pina Colada, should they wish. At night, it gets packed out – David Coulthard had one of several retirement parties here (no, not just when his car broke down).