A podium finish for team Lotus driver Kimi Räikkönen at the Singapore F1 Grand Prix

Sunday 22nd September –  Kimi Räikkönen drove through the pain barrier to finish in a superb third position, whilst Romain Grosjean felt pain of a different kind after a forced retirement whilst battling for his own potential podium finish in the Singapore Grand Prix. Both drivers put in fantastic performances around the tight confines of the Marina Bay Street Circuit; one of the most gruelling races of the season.

Kimi remains in fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship on 149 points – now just 2 points behind Lewis Hamilton with Mark Webber a further 19 points behind – whilst Romain remains eighth on 57 points. The team remains in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship on 206 points from Ferrari’s 267 and well ahead of fifth-placed McLaren who have 76 points.

• Kimi started from P13 with a set of scrubbed super soft tyres, changing to new super softs on lap 10 and new medium compound tyres on lap 25.
• Romain started from P3 on a scrubbed set of super soft tyres, changing to a scrubbed set of super softs on lap 15, a new set of mediums tyres on lap 25 and finally stopping for a further set of scrubbed mediums on lap 33 while his engine air tank was refilled. He retired on lap 37 due to lack of engine air pressure.

Kimi Räikkönen, P3, E21-05

“I think third was the maximum we could achieve today”

“It’s been a difficult weekend, so to finish on the podium is a good result. The car felt good and it could have been even better if I’d been able to do more work in practice, but even with a better qualifying performance I think third was the maximum we could achieve today. The problem with my back hasn’t been ideal, but it felt much better than yesterday and I didn’t really notice it in the race, only afterwards. I have some time to recover before Korea and we were pretty strong there last year, so let’s see what we can do next time out.”

Romain Grosjean, DNF, E21-04

“I think a second or third place finish was a realistic prospect”

“The race was going pretty well and I think a second or third place finish was a realistic prospect. We had a good strategy pitting under the safety car and we should have finished well, but unfortunately today my engine had other ideas. We lost air pressure and the team tried to fix the problem by topping it up with an additional pit stop, but that didn’t work so we had to retire which is never what you want to happen.”

Eric Boullier, Team Principal

“We will fight for podiums for the rest of the year I’m sure”

“Once more Kimi drove an exceptionally strong race today – even without considering his back pain – whilst the team did an amazing job with the strategy for both drivers. Were it not for Romain’s engine problems we should have had both cars home in third and fourth. It’s unfortunate that Romain had the problem with the pneumatic system of his engine as he showed strong pace in the race after putting in superb performances on both Friday and Saturday. This level of downforce suits our car and that’s the level we’re running for the remaining tracks this season; we will fight for podiums for the rest of the year I’m sure.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director

“Our race strategy worked perfectly today”

“Another day of mixed fortunes and commiserations for Romain who had a superb weekend, stymied by a reliability issue in the race. On the other hand, huge congratulations to Kimi for a typical ‘never-give-up’ race carving his way through the field nicely to put the back problems which have affected him all weekend right behind him. Our race strategy worked perfectly today and we were able to jump a number of other cars well.”

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 Team Support Leader
“The team did a great job with the strategy today; getting Kimi from 13th to 3rd on a track you can’t overtake on is a real achievement. Unfortunately Romain retired with an engine pneumatic system problem. Air consumption had been inconsistent throughout the race so we pitted him to top the air back up, however the consumption remained high so we were forced to retire the car on the next lap. We’ll look at why it happened as it was a brand new engine and put solutions in place to ensure it does not happen again.”