• Brazilian Grand Prix - FP2

Raikkonen has faith Lotus will sort car for qualifying

ESPN Staff
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Kimi Raikkonen: "We've never been very good on Friday" © Sutton Images
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Kimi Raikkonen is confident his Lotus will come good by Saturday's qualifying session despite a disappointing Friday practice session at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

Raikkonen finished the second session 12th fastest and lost time in the first session with an engine issue. It's not been unusual for Lotus to finish down the order during a Friday practice session this year, but Raikkonen said the car felt a little worse than usual.

"We've never been very good on Friday but today was more difficult because we were sliding around," he said. "We had some issues with the car in the first session so we didn't get much running and it didn't help either. But as I said, we've never been that fast on a Friday and the team always puts everything right for a Saturday so hopefully we can do it tomorrow."

As for the engine problem in the morning, he explained: "It was just an [ignition] coil issue, which was unfortunate and it took a long time to change it."

Team-mate Romain Grosjean was ninth fastest in second practice but said he struggled with the hard tyres in the hot temperatures.

"I think the tyres were a little bit out of their range today and it was not making life easy," he said. "On both low and high fuel they were out of their window. They worked well in winter testing so today it was 56C track temperature and that's just too hot. Degradation will be higher this weekend, especially in the infield the car is sliding quite a lot. We are trying to solve those issues and we will read the forecast because the track temperature will be key."

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