Lotus: The wins that got away

Thus far this year five teams have won races, and yet despite showing impressive pace on a consistent basis, Lotus is not yet among them. After Kimi Raikkonen came close to beating Sebastian Vettel in Bahrain, a victory appeared to be just around the corner, and up and down the pitlane, rivals have been fully expecting the Enstone team to make that final step.

Indeed on Sunday morning in Spain the consensus was that Lotus had the package to beat Pastor Maldonado's Williams and come out on top over a race distance, but in the end it didn't happen. Despite a late charge, Raikkonen had to settle for third, ahead of his team-mate Romain Grosjean.

Then prior to qualifying in Monaco many people expected to see the latter start on the front row and poised for a win in the nearest thing he has to a home race. And yet again things didn't fall into place.

Eyes now turn to Canada, a race where anything can happen, given the uncertain weather and a sharp focus on how the Pirellis will behave on Sunday. Confident in both its straightline speed and brake performance in Montreal, Lotus is determined to get everything right, and become the sixth team to win in 2012.

"It is frustrating, and I'd love to win a race," says director of trackside operations Alan Permane. "But what will win a race is consistency. We've not been as consistent as we have been with the disaster we had in Monaco, but the previous two races we were second and third and third and fourth. You keep doing that, and you're going to be there.

Alan Permane is a key part of Lotus's success © XPB

"Of course we want to win, and that's a high priority for the drivers, the team owners and the sponsors. But also we've got two good drivers who can really keep scoring some good points - not withstanding Monaco - and really do well in the championship. The long game should be the focus, really."

So what's gone wrong over the past two race weekends? As ever it's a combination of factors, and this year more than ever you cannot afford to make any mistakes or show any weaknesses, such is the strength in depth of the competition.

At Barcelona Raikkonen's strategy of stopping late and having fresher rubber than his rivals for the final stint nearly paid off, as he reeled in Fernando Alonso and Maldonado in the closing laps.

It was the polar opposite of Shanghai, where Kimi was well placed with a few laps to go but then ran out of tyres, and watched helplessly as half the field went by him. However the Barcelona strategy wasn't a reaction to that disappointment, but rather to a disappointing first stint.

"We weren't thinking about China," says Permane. "It was very clear from the first stint that we didn't have the pace to win. And we couldn't undercut them, as they were too far ahead at the first stop. So the only thing we could do was either hope they were doing four stops, or try and go long and attack in the last stint. At one point I did think they were going to do four, and I thought they would struggle. They took a gamble and it paid off. Doing the same as them or trying to stop a lap earlier than them would have done nothing.

"Maybe we went one lap too long, but we were also holding up Maldonado and Alonso a bit. The longer we could hold them up for, and they were on their final stint tyres, the better."

Raikkonen was in the mix in Spain © LAT

Raikkonen was some 18s behind the leaders when he emerged from his final pitstop, and he managed to close the gap.

"He made pretty much all of it up, it was a second or more per lap. But ultimately we weren't quick enough, that was the reason we didn't win," said Permane.

"After our Bahrain pace I thought we were going to be a bit quicker, but as I've said before, it's nice to be disappointed with third and fourth! In this game your expectations change very quickly. We got 27 points in Barcelona, more than anybody, and we moved up to within a shout of McLaren for second place."

Indeed Grosjean backed Raikkonen up with a solid fourth, despite his race being badly compromised. In six races the Frenchman has had three very expensive early collisions in Australia, Malaysia and now Monaco. But he also had a less well documented incident on the first lap in Spain, and while he survived, the car was wounded, as Permane explained.

"Romain had some contact with a Sauber at Turn 3, lost 2.5 per cent front balance, which is huge around a track like that when you're making adjustments of 0.3 per cent or something to trim the car. We put some of it back on at the first pitstop - we put the front wing to maximum - and got nearly half of it back, but it really compromised his race. He lost a huge amount of downforce, and front balance."

Given that obvious handicap Grosjean did well to earn fourth, and he went to Monaco with confidence high. Indeed such was his pace through the weekend he looked like a serious contender for the front row. In the end he had to settle for fifth, which became fourth after Michael Schumacher's penalty.

"It's always disappointing to be quick, and not get it right," says Permane. "Romain didn't get his qualifying right. I think we were one of only four cars to manage to save two sets of supersofts for Q3. He did a reasonable first lap, and he was second at that point, with other people that had run new tyres, but he failed to improve on his second run.

Grosjean's Monaco GP promised much but did not last long © LAT

"I think that's maybe down to a bit of experience. He had more fuel in the first run as well, he had fuel for two laps just for a bit of security because he had time. Then we fuelled for one, and he didn't get it right. I'm pretty sure he had the pace to be on the front row."

From fourth there was still plenty of potential to move up with a bit of clever strategy, but alas he didn't get past Sainte Devote, bouncing off Alonso into the path of Schumacher.

"In the race he screwed the start up, didn't use enough throttle, and got it wrong. What happened with the accident was Fernando moved across and touched him and he maybe over-reacted a little bit and went into Michael's path. We had to go and see the stewards after the race, and they agreed it was a racing incident. They were very reasonable, I have to say. But his race was over, so going from a very promising Thursday we ended up with nothing."

And then there was Raikkonen, a Monaco winner with McLaren in 2005. Even a world champion needs time to play his hand in around the streets of the principality after two years away, but Kimi made his life difficult by missing the first Thursday session.

He concluded after one lap that the customised higher-geared steering system developed by the team was not to his liking. After that it was an uphill battle, the afternoon's rain costing him more track time.

Raikkonen lost crucial mileage on day one in Monaco © XPB

"I don't want to say he didn't turn up, but he had a difficult start to the weekend with his power steering," says Permane. "He said 'Absolutely no way,' which is a bit of a shame really because what we did we only did because of his request. We designed something specifically to his specification. We said, 'What do you want to use in Monaco, what have you used in Monaco before?' We produced that and he didn't like it. He said there was no way he could drive with it, so we lost the session."

Could he have muddled through at least the first part of practice one and then have it changed in the lunch break? Permane accepts it would have been tough for the Finn if he wasn't happy or confident in the feel of the car.

"He is incredibly sensitive to steering, so I think it would have been a waste of time. If he says so, then there's no point. It wasn't ideal. Of course it's never easy when you miss a session in Monaco and then it's wet, but he wasn't quite there. If you look at Romain's times in FP1 and compare them to Kimi's times in FP2 when it was dry, Romain was there straight away, the way he was chucking the car around and the way he was comfortable with the car. It was really sorted for him and he was really happy, and I just don't think Kimi was happy at all during the weekend."

As in China Kimi found himself in tyre trouble in the race, something that was not expected. It came far too early for an immediate change to the prime, so he had to battle away with a queue of cars behind him until the pitstop window opened up.

"The rear tyres went, which was really odd. He just said 'I've lost the rear tyres'. And at that point we're faced with pure misery. If we'd stopped that early it would have been two stops and we could have been absolutely finished. So we had no choice but to try and eke it out a bit longer. If you look at [Jean-Eric] Vergne, he stopped early and his tyres disappeared.

Raikkonen struggled for race pace as the tyres wore © LAT

"I'm pretty sure we would have got nothing if we'd stopped as early as lap 16/17, so we had to push it out. Then on the prime tyre we had no problems, but we were just not quick enough. It seemed quite inconsistent the car. He had the ability to lap reasonably well sometimes, but on new tyres he got virtually nothing out of it. You saw people like [Nico] Hulkenberg do incredibly quick laps when they were fresh, and we got virtually nothing out of the fresh tyres."

He did at least eventually scrape home in ninth place, which was better than leaving with nothing. But two points was so much less than the team had expected from Monaco.

Permane is confident that the team will bounce back, and that there will be other chances to shine over the course of this unpredictable season.

"We've been quick pretty much everywhere, although the first couple of races didn't go to plan at all. But I feel we can be quick anywhere.

"I'm certainly enjoying it, that's for sure. There are a lot of people just saying 'tyres, tyres, tyres' and blaming the tyres, and there's no doubt that they are adding to the spice. But I think there's more to it than that, I really do.

"If your car works in China and Bahrain, why does it not work in Barcelona? I think our car has generally been pretty consistent. OK, we were more competitive in the race in Bahrain, but it you look at qualifying in Spain, that's probably where we should have been in Bahrain if things were working right."

Permane says that while a pole has escaped the team thus far, the one-lap pace of the E20 is consistently good. It's proving very valuable, for example in terms of managing tyre use over the course of qualifying.

Lotus clearly does not lack speed © LAT

"If you've got pace it makes your life an awful lot easier. In Spain, we were pretty confident we had pace, so in Q2 we just did one run in the middle of the session. The drivers go at 95 per cent so they have no risk of crashing or spinning or locking up or anything like that, and you go through simply, whereas before you have to do a run at the start in all the traffic, a run at the end in all the traffic, to get your two runs in, and it's more difficult. When you've got pace everything's an awful lot easier."

It's no secret that the Kimi steering saga caused some frustration in the Enstone camp in Monaco. But just six races into his comeback the Finn has shown some real spark on Sundays, even if his less experienced team mate has usually had the edge in qualifying. Permane is not afraid to express disappointment if he thinks the drivers haven't got the most out of the package, but overall he's happy with the way they have performed.

"Having two good drivers is obviously going to help us hugely. I'm not saying that other teams haven't got that, but for us it's allowing us to set our car up better, we can trust the results from one car to the other car, and stuff like that. So we're getting more out of the car by having two proper drivers.

"Of course we want to win, and that would be brilliant, but if you said to me you're going to be third and fourth at every race this season, I'll take that now. Because honestly, that will win the championship. That's what's going to win it, is a bit of consistency, while it's up and down like this.

"We want to win and we need to win, and the drivers are desperate to win. I think it's a little frustrating for them to finish so close and not be there, but it's a nice problem to have."