Close, but no cigar. Kimi Raikkonen looked like he was ready to kick himself for not winning the Bahrain Grand Prix last weekend, after he finished second in the race, three seconds behind Sebastian Vettel, who took his first win of the season.
Analysing the race, things do tend to look a bit clearer a few days later. And if Lotus had employed team orders a bit earlier in the race, at a time when Romain Grosjean could have been ordered aside to let Kimi pass more easily, the Finn might have won the race. But even though team orders are legal from 2012, Lotus team principal Eric Boullier said that they do not use team orders at all.
“We don’t want to play team orders, so we let them race normally and what happened, happened,” said Boullier.
Kimi Raikkonen said after the race that he was disappointed no to be winning, but the race showed that Lotus has the speed.
“Yeah,” said Raikkonen, “but there are no team orders and we know the rules. “I tried to get past as quickly as I can but it’s not easy with two similar cars.
“It’s always easy to say afterwards ‘if we had done that’ but in the end we were not fast enough to win and we have to take the second,” he added.
