15/06/2012
NEWS STORY
Each of the last two races in Monaco and Montreal have sprung something of a surprise for Eric Boullier, and for highly contrasting reasons. Looking ahead to Valencia, the Lotus Team Principal assesses what it takes to be successful in a season of seemingly endless twists and turns...
Eric, Montreal must have been a relief after a tough weekend in Monaco...
Eric Boullier: Yes. To be honest, we knew the car was competitive but we were not expecting to finish so high up the order. Romain drove very well and, although we knew how good he was when we offered him a drive with the team, he keeps surprising us. He's bloody fast.
In return, has Romain been surprised by anything this year?
EB: You should ask him, but I'm sure he was not expecting such a long round of applause from the whole factory when he came to Enstone last week! Oh, and I think he was quite surprised too after the Canadian Grand Prix when his engineers told him that he had a substantial number of quick laps left in his tyres.
Will Valencia be a completely different challenge?
EB: The tyres will be different, with the soft and medium compounds available. We'll have to get used to these again. This said the track temperature should be high, the surface is more abrasive than Montreal, and there are also more corners per lap. All this could suit the E20 quite well.
How do you get involved in the technical matters over a race weekend?
EB: As you know, my background is engineering. As a Team Principal, it helps me to understand the set-up of the cars. I can also sometimes make some suggestions, as I could have faced a similar problem or situation in the past. This said, I'm never stepping into conversations for no reason. We've got one of the strongest pools of engineers in the paddock and they know what they're doing.
What's the key to a strong performance this year?
EB: If you want to perform, you need to get your weekend absolutely right. The slightest setback can have a very negative effect on your performance over the rest of the weekend. We saw it with Kimi in Monaco, when he skipped the first session because of a steering issue, and also in Montreal, with a hydraulic failure in qualifying. Some people say that Formula 1 has become a lottery, but I don't agree. I've found this season quite entertaining and also very challenging from an engineering point of view.
How do you make sure that you can get your weekend absolutely right?
EB: First of all, you need to prepare for every race as meticulously as possible. Nothing must be left to chance. We've come up with a very strong programme during free practice sessions which allows us to do our homework on the Friday without paying attention to what our opponents are doing. This said, there's nothing we can do in case of a change of climatic conditions or technical failure.
After seven races, you probably have a good idea of the car's strengths and weaknesses...
EB: Yes, and they are plain to see for everybody. The E20 is very good with its tyres in races where the temperature is high, and it seems to be competitive on every single track layout. This said, we need to improve our qualifying pace and also the way the car performs when the temperature drops. We've got some ideas already. Some of them will be implemented in Valencia and we'll see how it goes.
After the frustration of Monaco, a return to the top three in Montreal adds to the team's podium haul in 2012. Technical Director James Allison assesses the chances of a repeat performance on the streets of Valencia.
How do you assess the team's performance at the Canadian Grand Prix?
James Allison: I was really pleased with the race result for Romain and happy that Kimi also brought home some useful points. It was a very well conducted race by the whole team, including a good pair of pit stops and excellent judgements on what we could get away with on each set of tyres based on a carefully constructed programme on Friday. This was all the more satisfying as the programme in question had to be carried out in a slightly unusual order due to threats of rain. Our feeling from both sessions was that we had good speed in the car, and it was good to see that come to fruition on Sunday, especially after qualifying where our pace was not where we expected it to be.
Tyre management was the main talking point in Montreal, with Romain seemingly doing a better job of this than most; just how far do you think he could have pushed that second set?
JA: We could in fact have gone quite a lot further than we did. There was still plenty of rubber left on them at the end of the race. It really was an excellent performance from Romain, and the car looked very competitive on the soft compound tyres. If you look at the cars who made two stops, their middle stints were around the same pace that Romain was running and he managed to continue until the end of the race. Indeed, after Lewis [Hamilton] stopped for the second time he was only pulling away from Romain at around 0.4s per lap on tyres that were 37 laps younger.
Despite clearly having strong race pace, the E20 doesn't quite seem to be able to show its potential during qualifying; is this an area of particular focus for the team?
JA: We've often been devastatingly fast on the harder of the tyres in qualifying but then come up a bit short on the softer option; that's an issue we're working on at the moment. You can point to cars on the grid that are very quick in qualifying but not so competitive in the race and vice-versa. We seem to have a car that is not among the very quickest in qualifying at the moment but has very good race pace. It's not a bad combination, and we'd rather have it this way round than the other, but if we want to win races we are going to have to improve our qualifying performances. It's not going to take much, we just need that little bit extra if we want to challenge for higher honours.
What are the main challenges of the Valencia circuit compared with the last outing in Montreal?
JA: Valencia is not exactly famous for challenging corners, but it definitely has a few more than Canada. The tarmac on the streets of Valencia is a little big rougher and it tends to be roasting hot at this time of year; these are all factors which tend to suit us. Montreal was one of the circuits I had concerns about in terms of playing to the strengths of the E20, but we ran pretty well there. Hopefully with Valencia being more in our direction we can produce another good result.
Are you excited at the prospect of running in Valencia given the history of high temperatures at the circuit?
JA: We're generally looking forward to the summer, but having said that it's not as if we need the temperature to be scorching. Forty degrees track temperature, as we'd expect to see in Valencia, is not a roasting hot track by any means; it can get a lot warmer than that.
You've mentioned that Valencia should theoretically be more to the team's liking than Montreal, but not by a large margin; with that in mind, and having seen the result last time out, what would you be happy with come Sunday evening?
JA: It's hard to talk in those terms, but I honestly don't believe there's been a race this year where we've been incapable of getting a podium on merit. Let's hope Valencia proves to be the same.