F1: Will Lotus Win In 2012?

One of the biggest surprises of the 2012 campaign has been the pace of the Lotus E20. When it was announced that 2007 World Champion, Kimi Raikkonen, was returning to the sport with Lotus, nobody imagined that he would be in a position to be challenging for podiums, let alone race wins, so early into his return. That is not to say that Kimi was going to struggle to the same extent that Michael Schumacher would - after all, Kimi had continued to race in other categories of motorsport. However, nobody really believed that Lotus would be able to design a car that will put the Iceman towards the front of the grid. Lotus, formerly Renault and Benetton, are a team with experience of producing cars capable of winning Grands Prix as well as World Championships, but have so far gone without a championship since Fernando Alonso's win in 2006. Since then, the team has undergone several key personnel changes and have, until now, been unable to rediscover that championship winning form. After winning his 1st title with the team at the end of 2005, Alonso announced that he would see through the 2006 season and then will depart to join the McLaren team in 2007, where he endured a turbulent season with the rookie, Lewis Hamilton. There is no doubt that this would have shocked the team, but Alonso may very well have known from within that the team was on the decline and took the opportunity to put himself in the fastest available car on the grid for 2007. In 2008, the Enstone based team were involved in a scandal of massive proportions in which Team Principle Flavio Briatore and Technical Director Pat Symonds schemed to "fix" the results of the race. Nelson Piquet Jr, partnering Alonso after his return to the team from McLaren, inexplicably crashed on lap 14 of the race after Alonso pitted in early. Given the nature of the circuit, this immediately prompted Race Director Charlie Whiting to bring out the Safety Car. Having already made an early pit stop, Alonso slotted behind the Safety Car in 1st place - given the nature of the circuit and lack of overtaking opportunities, he went on to win the Grand Prix. That weekend, the Renault F1 team hadn't won a race for almost two years. The pressure was on Renault to justify the cost of the sport and there were rumours that Renault boss Carlos Ghosn was considering pulling Renault out of the sport. It wasn't for another year when the governing body, the FIA, were made aware of this incident from Nelson Piquet Jr himself, quite clearly angry with being replaced mid-season by Franco-Swiss driver, Romain Grosjean. The team got off with a suspended ban, but the damage was done and the reputation of the team and the Renault car company was clear for all to see. Renault did not contest the decision, and shortly confirmed that both Symonds and Briatore had left the team. In 2010, Renault sold a majority stake to Genii Capital, an investment company based out of Luxembourg, but Renault retained a quarter of the team and continued to provide engines to the team, and continue to do so to this day. With funding coming at a premium, the team took on Russian driver Vitaly Petrov , who was rumoured to be brought in to attract Russian investors. Towards the end of the year, Renault decided to sell it's remaining shares in the team to Lotus Cars and decided only to continue as an engine supplier. The team had landed a major coup by hiring the promising Polish driver Robert Kubica. However, following a horrific rallying accident before the start of the 2011 season, he was replaced by Nick Heidfeld and subsequently Bruno Senna for the season whilst he recovered. When it became apparent that Kubica wasn't going to be fit for the beginning of the 2012 season, Lotus decided to bring back Finland's Kimi Raikkonen after a 2-year absence from the sport. It is well documented that the Enstone-based team build a good "out-of-the-box" car, but due to a lack of resources are unable to develop the car further. However, with the unpredictable nature of the 2012 season, the Lotus E20 is able to utilise it's natural ability to preserve it's tyres longer into the race than it's rivals, and therefore are able to challenge regularly for points and podiums. Kimi Raikkonen is highly regarded in the sport as having some of the best raw pace by F1 experts, and at the wheel of this promising Lotus package has all of the potential to deliver the result that both Kimi and Lotus deserve. But why hasn't it come? There is no doubt that with either Raikkonen or Grosjean at the wheel, and given the circumstances are right, both can get that elusive first win. The team have so far delivered four 2nd place finishes, with Raikkonen in Bahrain, Valencia and Hungary with Grosjean also in Canada. The issue that Lotus has been having is the 1-lap pace in qualifying and the 1st stint in the Grand Prix. Up until the Hungarian GP, the highest qualifying position for Grosjean was 3rd in Australia and Spain, and 4th for Raikkonen in China and Spain. The team have not started races well this season, often being leap-frogged in the first stint by their rivals and end up spending the remaining parts of the race trying to keep up. With the teams ability to manage their tyres effectively, both cars light up in the closing stages in the race and thus have been able to deliver several podium finishes this season and currently sit 3rd in the constructors standings with 192 points - by fair their most successful campaign since 2006. If Lotus are to push for a race win and subsequently mount a championship challenge in the future, they will need to sort out their 1-lap pace and the opening stint on Sunday afternoons. If they can do that, it is only a matter of time before we see either Kimi or Romain on the top step of the podium.