Podium finish for Lotus F1 Team in German Grand Prix

Lotus F1 Team’s Kimi Raikkonen powered to third position in today’s German Grand Prix. The Renault engined E20 finished the German Grand Prix in third position after a post race penalty was applied to Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel.

Kimi Raikkonen, Lotus F1

Photo by: xpb.cc

Sebastian had finished the race 3.7secs behind race winner, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, after a penultimate lap pass on Jenson Button, but the pass was deemed to be outside the boundaries of the track and he was handed a 20secs penalty post race. The reigning world champion therefore dropped to fifth position.

Kimi takes his seventh consecutive points’ scoring position and fourth top three finish this year. Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber finished in eighth, giving Renault-engined drivers three of the points scoring positions.

All four Renault-powered teams achieved double car finishes today; Williams F1 Team’s Pastor Maldonado finished in 15th with Bruno Senna 17th. Caterham F1 Team came home in 16th and 19th with Vitaly Petrov and Heikki Kovalainen respectively, while Romain Grosjean finished in 18th.

Red Bull Racing retains the lead of the constructors’ championship over Ferrari, while Lotus F1 Team is fourth. Williams F1 Team is seventh and Caterham F1 Team 10th. Renault engined drivers now occupy three of the top four positions in the drivers’ championship, with Mark Webber second, Sebastian Vettel third and Kimi Raikkonen fourth.

Rémi Taffin, Renault Sport F1 head of track operations The Hockenheimring places an emphasis on good top-end engine power as over two thirds of the track is spent at full power. However the twisty back section means driveability is crucial here and can make a big difference to the overall lap time.

Congratulations to Kimi for a great race. He now moves into fourth in the drivers’ championship. Romain’s race was obviously going to be tougher with his starting slot and then the front wing change, but when it became clear that points were not on the table, we were able to use less severe engine settings so the unit can be used more aggressively in its next outing, planned in Singapore.

Sebastian had a good race but the penalty obviously means he ultimately finished in fifth. Meanwhile Mark had a solid points finish.

It is also positive to have all eight Renault-engined cars finish this race. While disappointing for Williams not to have scored some points – both Pastor and Bruno’s races affected by early incidents – we made some good progress on the structural integration of the exhaust in free practice this weekend. We seem to have replicated the positive effect shown in the test cells in Viry, showing again how the engine-chassis partnership continues to thrive.

Caterham had a clean race with no real issues and we are enjoying working with them as they edge towards the midfield. They have got some development parts coming through all the time and we’ll see where we are in Hungary with a full dry week-end hopefully!

Source: Renault Sport