Lotus F1 Team has confirmed that Romain Grosjean will partner Kimi Räikkönen in 2013.
Grosjean finished on the podium in Bahrain, Canada and Hungary and was eighth in the Drivers’ Championship. He had more than his fair share of incidents, but showed some more maturity at the end of the year.
“Romain is a great talent and we are pleased that he is continuing with us for a second season,” said team boss Eric Boullier. “With the continuity of two exceptional drivers like Romain and Kimi we are well placed to build on our strong 2012 with even better results in the year ahead. Both drivers worked very well together in their first year as team-mates, and I think there is the potential of even better things from the season ahead.”
Grosjean is, naturally, delighted at the news
“It’s fantastic for me to be continuing with Lotus F1 Team for 2013,” he said. “It’s superb to have the support of everyone at Enstone. I’m really looking forward to rewarding their faith when we take to the track in Australia. I learnt a lot in my first full season in Formula 1 and my aim is to put these lessons into practice with stronger and more consistent performance on track next year. There are a lot of exciting developments occurring behind the scenes at Enstone and I am very excited with the prospect of the E21.”
Who’s left to confirm? Sutil seems to be confident that visa issues won’t stop him gettiing a seat so I expect a Force India announcement soon, and HRT won’t exist, so is that it for 2013?
Caterham’s second seat
@Dave… Force India hasn’t actually confirmed either seat. Caterham still needs to confirm one seat and Marussia has not announced that Max Chilton has the second seat but it’s expected.
Petrov at Caterham I guess.
caterham approved charles pic as 1st driver but 2nd driver unknown. and FI as you said.
If Pic is ‘formally’ referred to as the ‘first driver’ by virtue of experience, that all but confirms that Van De Garde is in the second seat.
Or was that a slip of the keyboard?
“but showed some more maturity at the end of the year.”
Like colliding with another car at Q1 and crashing on lap 6 at the last GP.
Like him. Boy has he a fast team mate, though! Cool.. we find out.
Actually, if every name changed by some wave of a wand, this weekend, I’d be happy. Nice, and all that, having so many champions, but we’ve all seen a few, so bring them on. The drivers. Let them through. I am still not over that lawsuit, though. Because that was pure suckage. Hmm, wondering what TF’s plan is, now, and I mean that well, desire something more to come of it than a argument over a name . . .
Do you think Kamui was a serious candidate for his place? He just said ‘see you in 2014′.
Joe, what is the skinny on Mark Gillan’s departure from Williams?
Grosjean’s back – gird your loins everyone!
He’ll be fine.
Lotus probably wanted to make him sweat a little.
The last young driver dubbed ‘the crash kid’ just became a triple world champion. They can get better!
@ Joe S,
What is the F1 paddocks honest opinion on Kamui?
Alot of Kamui fanbois seem to think he deserves the Lotus seat more than Grosjean which i firmly disagree.
I think he deserves a seat somewhere but F1 is not always fair. He is in the middle where he is not a megastar but not a pay-driver. It is not easy to survive there.
Would you also put Kovalinen in this bracket?
I like Heiki and would have thought he would be a great choice for the FI seat, but I suppose money talks and he was adament when speaking to the BBc that he wouldn’t become a pay driver.
Kovalinen has had his chance at McLaren – I don’t see him driving next year
A better than pay driver that also had huge pay amounts to go along with him! other than Lewis, Vettel or Alonso walking up offering to pay to drive or even drive for free what more could a team want? i am very disappointed for Kobayashi. hopefully we can find something for 2014 like he says
Kamui says he would have been able to put together a $10M funding package for 2013… I wonder how much money Sauber was asking for to save his drive?
Not sure the money Kamaui could or could not raise was ultimately that important to Sauber. I think the line 2013 line up was choen by Ferrari and Carlos Slim. Ferrari want to place Hulkenberg in a Ferrari engined car for a year to get a better view on how good or bad he is, if all goes well I guess we’ll see him partner Alonso in 2014. In Sauber agreeing to sign Hulkenberg, they may have some benefits in engine fees or a subsidised driver salary. Gutierrez was chosen by Slim, and Sauber want/ need to keep Telmex funding.
Kamaui had a few years with Sauber his performances whilst on occasion strong have not been consistent, he will be missed, but he was erratic, he should have calmed his style in 2012, it may have resulted in a drive elsewhere on the grid. Hopefully absence will make the heart grow fonder, (that and maybe reduced ticket sales / viewers in Japan)
My guess is if Sauber could afford to run a driver with minimal backing they would have tried out Robin Frijns as 2nd driver in 2013. Hopefully he will get a few Friday sessions as reserve driver then get promotion to the race team replacing Hulkenberg in 2014.
I don’t think they were asking for money, rather they had a sponsor squeezing them from one end & they made a successful grab for a better driver at the same time.
Am glad he received another chance. I sincerely hope he won’t get stuck in mid-field wheel banging at the first corner in Melbourne. I also hope we will finally be able to judge whether he has a problem with the mirrors or not. This one should be easy to fix. If his problem is related to misjudging the dimensions of his car it might take much longer!
I dare not think what will happen if he torpedos another car or 2 anytime soon.
3rd Driver role at Lotus is worth fighting for me thinks!
Is Sutil really confident of a return or did having a bit of a profile at the Race of Champions at the weekend just lead to a few column inches?
Does anyone know what this statement means?
”Furthermore, please note that Mr Eric Lux does not exclude commencing an action against any other persons involved in this matter.”
Was there more then two people involved in this fight?
I believe that Lux was trying to stir things up, but as he had no case against anyone else, nothing happened. The key point in all if this is that no matter what happened in the run-up to the incident only one man stuck a glass in another man’s neck. Only Stone Age types think this is a justifiable action and the court obviously agreed. I believe Sutil was lucky to get away with the punishment that he got, but he must live with the consequences of his actions. He has no-one to blame but himself. Bert Gachot served prison time for spraying a taxi driver with some mace, which is not nice, but it is a hell of a lot less dangerous than sticking a broken glass near someone’s jugular. Bertrand’s F1 career was badly affected by that incident, which is understandable given that F1 drivers are supposed to be role models. This is what the judge in Sutil’s case said.
Trying to talk with Kamui fanbois is like taking to a 12 year old kid who has had his lollies and favourite plastic toy taken from him.
They seem to think Kamui was “always the NO.1 choice ahead” of Grosjean.
Delusional thinking to say the least.
To Kamui Fanbois …. Lotus hired Grosjean again because he is the better driver than any other name that was thrown around.
………….