Lotus technical director James Allison believes the team’s car has genuine pace in the dry and will continue to race at the front of the field in the upcoming races. Kimi Raikkonen produced a scintillating drive to take victory, his second for the team, in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. Raikkonen was seventh last time out in the rain-hit Malaysian Grand Prix, one place behind team-mate Romain Grosjean, but Allison told the latest edition of the JA on F1 podcast that the car still showed front-running pace in dry conditions. “We didn’t have a great race at Sepang More…

Romain Grosjean made up for a poor first day of testing yesterday to top the times on the second day in Barcelona, ahead of Jenson Button and Pastor Maldonado. It was another day of mixed conditions as rain fell overnight and continued through to this morning, offering another opportunity to run the intermediate and wet tyres and gain a clearer picture of the perfect cross over point on to slick tyres. And this cross-over point occurred an hour prior to the lunch break, when the majority of teams took the chance to cover some dry miles beneath a threatening sky. More…

Romain Grosjean continued Lotus’ strong form during this week’s first winter test by topping the times of Day 2 at Jerez, as the teams piled on the mileage, some covering around 100 laps while Lewis Hamilton’s opening day at Mercedes came to an abrupt end due to a brake failure. Hamilton had completed just fifteen laps this morning and had just done a lap in the 1m 19.5s, when a hydraulic brake line at the back caused him to run straight on at the Dry Sack hairpin and lightly in to the barriers. The back-straight leading in to Dry Sack More…

Lotus has finally confirmed that Romain Grosjean will retain his seat at the team for next season, with the Frenchman vowing to put the lessons learnt from his turbulent 2012 into practice. Although the 26-year-old had been expected to be kept on alongside Kimi Raikkonen for a second straight season the delay in the reconfirmation suggested the Enstone team’s hierarchy was carefully taking its time to ensure Grosjean was ready to make improvements in 2013. As while the Frenchman, after resurrecting his career in GP2 following his brief ill-fated initial F1 stint with the same team in 2009, showed his More…

Mark Webber has led calls for Romain Grosjean to face another driving ban after he was taken out by the Frenchman at the start of the Japanese Grand Prix, the seventh such incident Grosjean has been involved in this season. Grosjean received a one-race ban after causing a pile-up in Spa, but today’s incident shows that either he has not learned or he has some in-built problem when it comes to the instinctive phase of the racing driver’s art – the chaotic race starts. Because race starts are an instinctive moment, many ex-drivers in the paddock argue that this is More…

Jerome D’Ambrosio will race in place of the suspended Romain Grosjean’s for Lotus at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix, the team has as expected confirmed, marking the former Virgin driver’s competitive return to a race environment for the first time since the end of last season. Although some of the bigger name drivers currently on the F1 sidelines were immediately linked to the one-off drive after Grosjean’s one-race ban for causing Sunday’s first-corner pile-up at Spa was announced, it was logical that Lotus would turn to their well-regarded Belgian test and reserve driver to fill the void at Monza. The More…

It was interesting to speak to a few of the drivers privately after the race in Belgium and to hear that some of them welcomed the stewards’ tough stance on Romain Grosjean, banning him from the next race in Monza. One or two said that the ban should have been longer. Clearly there is a problem here with two drivers in particular: Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado. Their fellow drivers are upset with their repeated incidents involving other drivers and don’t feel safe racing against them. Grosjean has been involved in incidents at the start in Australia, Malaysia and Monaco among More…

Lotus driver Romain Grosjean set the pace again on Day 2 in Barcelona, setting the fastest time of the day in 1m 22.614, but he also managed 124 laps in the day including a race simulation which impressed onlookers. Grosjean said,”I’m very happy with the car, and it was great that we could still run strongly at the end of the session, even after a long stint.” Team mate Kimi Raikkonen takes over tomorrow in the car for the remainder of the test. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso managed the Scuderia’s first race distance simulation this afternoon, after Felipe Massa’s attempt yesterday. More…

Romain Grosjean is back in Formula 1. The 25 year old Frenchman will drive alongside Kimi Raikkonen in a deal which has clearly been brokered by French oil company Total, which has also extended its sponsorship of the team for a further two years. Team owner Gerard Lopez of Genii hinted recently that the team might well change both drivers after a lacklustre 2011 season, which saw Vitaly Petrov criticise the team and Bruno Senna drafted in half way through the year to replace Nick Heidfeld. Grosjean did a stint in F1 with the Enstone based team during its days More…

Romain Grosjean clinched the GP2 title this weekend, following in the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and Nico Hulkenberg. Now he needs to move back into F1 and it will be very interesting to see what happens. Grosjean has had an F1 chance before, of course, in 2009 when he was drafted in by Flavio Briatore to replace Nelson Piquet Jr. It was the wrong move at the wring time, he came in with no testing, mid season and up against Fernando Alonso in the other car. He was too young, not prepared and wasn’t physically strong enough. Now, More…

Following on from the driver switches at HRT and Team Lotus in recent races, there is more movement with Bruno Senna being given a chance to drive the Renault in Friday morning practice in Budapest. The Brazilian has been in a reserve driver role this season after a difficult debut season with HRT last year. Nick Heidfeld’s seat with the team is under review, the veteran German has not performed as well as expected against Vitaly Petrov – it is seven to three in qualifying to the Russian – in the seat left vacant by Robert Kubica’s accident. But it More…