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F1 NEWS

Abu Dhabi GP: Lotus says victory proves it is serious about F1

By Jonathan Noble

Monday, November 5th 2012, 13:44 GMT

Lotus celebrates Kimi Raikkonen's Abu Dhabi win Lotus thinks the biggest positive that will come from Kimi Raikkonen's triumph in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is in showing that the team is serious in its Formula 1 ambitions.

With Lotus having been at the centre of a naming row and numerous doubts about its financial commitment in recent years, Raikkonen helped silence its critics with a victory last weekend.

Team principal Eric Boullier believes the win marks the start of a promising spell for the outfit, and he hopes it will act as a message to its rivals and potential sponsors about what it is capable of in the future.

"The most important thing is to show everybody that Lotus is serious," Boullier said when asked by AUTOSPORT about what impact this result would have on the team.

"We have shown that we can deliver regular podiums, and we can now say we can win as well.

"Our strategy is that we want to be a top team, I always said this, and to be a top team we need to keep pushing and keep gaining more results, more resources and more sponsors to establish ourselves.

"We are happy to share this success with the people [sponsors] we have on our shirt, but it is also important for the sponsors we are talking with.

"The media will relay the message for us anyway, but obviously this win will help us get some positive decisions in commercial discussions to build us up for the future."

Raikkonen's victory comes just three races after the team introduced a major update to its E20, which included the move towards Coanda-effect exhausts.

With Lotus extracting more potential from the design at each race, Boullier sees possibilities for another win before the season is out.

"Realistically you can see in Abu Dhabi that we had a strong race, but we needed some factors to make sure that we could win," he explained.

"We pushed to get the big points and, if we can qualify in the top five, then we will be here. And if there is an opportunity to win, we will take it."

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