A look at the performance of Lotus F1 Team in the 2012 Formula 1 season so far
Lotus F1 Team have been trying to achieve that elusive win in the current season with half the current 2012 Formula 1 season over.
The team has made big strides relative to its 2011 endeavours and nothing confirms their elevation more than the fact that Lotus team principal Eric Boullier had to reassess the team’s goals for the current season after realising that the team has the potential
to much more than they expected prior to the season starting.
From the pre-season sessions, it was evident that the 2012 Lotus car E20 was a strong and reliable car. The driver line although on paper was good enough but lacked experience at one end and practice on the other.
Lotus had Kimi Raikkonen coming in after a two-year hiatus from Formula 1, and it was natural for him to be a little rusty earlier in the season. Raikkonen was partnered up with a Franco-Swiss driver Romain Grosjean- a young untested for the most part driver
with a lot of potential.
The team had nothing to lose after a disappointing 2011 campaign and a new line-up and revamped car design partly due to the FIA’s new regulations taking effect meant that the team was entering a realm of uncertainty.
They were soon soothed by realising that they had something special working for them with the new car proving to be better than most cars on the grid and the drivers showing that their lack of recent Formula 1 driving experience is not going to hamper their
season campaign.
Lotus had a quite start to their 2012 campaign as they scored only 6 points from the opening race of the season in Australia, managed to do better in the next race in Malaysia under damp conditions by scoring 10 points. The next race in China did not show
the true potential of the team either.
The Bahrain Grand Prix was the one that kick-started the season for the team as they went on to score 33 points in the race followed by 27 points at the Spanish Grand Prix. Boullier at this point looked into reassessing the team’s goals.
A poor Monaco Grand Prix meant there was still work to be done as the duo of Raikkonen and Grosjean only managed 2 points from the race. The team did well to bounce back at the Canadian Grand Prix as they scored 22 points in the race.
European Grand Prix was a difficult one for the team as the low temperatures were not well suited to the E20’s performance yet the team managed to do well to score 18 points. The British GP had a similar result and added 18 more points to the tally.
The German Grand Prix brought in a mediocre result of 15 points followed by another season high of 33 points at the Hungarian GP.
The team is now placed third in the constructors’ championship behind Red Bull and McLaren. Lotus are only 1 point behind McLaren and are feeling confident of moving past them once the season returns from its one-month summer break.
It will be an interesting second half of the season as Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari and Lotus battle it out for the title of the season. Lotus will find solace in consistently scoring points and will work hard to find that elusive win once the season resumes. They
will need to tweak the car to suit all conditions in order to challenge for the top spots and that is right now the only c***k in their armour.
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