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F1 NEWS

Lotus: Third in points for Kimi Raikkonen still worth getting

By Jonathan Noble

Tuesday, November 20th 2012, 09:41 GMT

Lotus is determined that Kimi Raikkonen keeps hold of his third place in the Formula 1 drivers' standings, despite the Finn's recent claims that he does not want to attend the end of season FIA prizegiving.

Raikkonen half-joked recently that if he could not win the championship then he would rather finish fourth overall so he could avoid going to Istanbul's festivities where the top three drivers are presented with their trophies.

But with Raikkonen holding a 16-point advantage over Lewis Hamilton, and McLaren currently on strong form, Lotus boss Eric Boullier says there is no question of it giving up on the place.

"We will definitely do everything for Kimi to have to fly to Istanbul," Boullier told AUTOSPORT.

"We have to put ourselves in the same position we were this weekend. The objective is to have one car on the podium at least."

Boullier believes that the Interlagos circuit that hosts this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix should be much better suited to the Lotus E20 as the team bids to end the campaign with another strong result.

"With the pace we had in qualifying in Austin we could have expected to fight for at least one car on the podium," he said.

"Up to the first pitstop, the pace was there and we were catching [Fernando] Alonso and obviously got in front of him, but we had a similar problem to Ferrari with one of the wheel guns.

"At that stage we lost some places and it was difficult to recover, and there was also some [tyre] graining during the second stint and that didn't help."

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