- British Grand Prix - Qualifying
Passive DRD fails to meet Raikkonen's expectations
Kimi Raikkonen said Lotus had hoped to gain more of an advantage from its new drag reduction device after he qualified ninth on the grid for Sunday's British Grand Prix.
The passive system has been under development since last season and is designed to change the airflow over the rear wing over a certain speed in order to reduce drag on the straights but maintain downforce in the corners. Getting the system right has proved tricky for Lotus and Raikkonen said the device had not yet lived up to its promise.
"We hoped to get a bit more from it but let's see how it behaves tomorrow and hopefully it gives us some better race pace," he said. "We know that it's not going to make up for the difference in qualifying. We will see after tomorrow. You always hope to get more from new parts but we are where we are right now and hopefully we can go forward from there."
However, he fully supported the team's decision to run the device at Silverstone.
"If we never try things we will never learn anything and we will never start using things. We don't have test and you have to use them at some point. I don't really see that we have much to lose because without trying something new and finding a chunk of time we will not catch the guys in front of us. We try to do everything that we can."
Raikkonen said the main issue on Saturday had been a lack of downforce.
"This is our speed right now. It's not ideal but it is what it is and we have to try to improve it. The car doesn't behave too badly but I think overall we miss the downforce and downforce is the easiest way to make the car fast."