Raikkonen feels that car is lacking pace at Silverstone - MotorSportsTalk

Kimi Raikkonen may not be pleased about starting down in 8th for today’s British Grand Prix, but the Finnish driver believes that he extracted all of the pace out of the Lotus E21 car during qualifying on Saturday.

When asked whether he expected more from qualifying, Raikkonen said: “Obivously, yes, but I think this is our speed right now.

“It’s not ideal, but it is what it is and we have to try to improve it.”

Raikkonen also ran with a new ‘device’ on his car during qualifying, designed to enhance the effect of DRS by diverting air flow when on the straights. However, according to Raikkonen, it did not have as great an effect at expected.

“We hoped for a bit more from it but let’s see how it behaves tomorrow. Hopefully it gives us a bit better race pace.

“We always hope for more from big parts, but like I said, we are where we are right now and we’re focused.”

Alternatively, Romain Grosjean did not use the device and qualified just 0.007 seconds ahead of Raikkonen. Despite the Lotus drivers finishing 8th and 9th in qualifying, they will line up P7 and P8 after Paul di Resta’s exclusion from the session.

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Chase Sexton announced on Instagram he will sit out this weekend’s Pro Motocross race at Hangtown in Rancho Cordova, California after a practice crash on Tuesday left him with a concussion.

Sexton’s crash on Tuesday happened during a test session at Fox Raceway.

“Bummed to make this post but I’ll be sitting out this weekend,” Sexton said. “As you guys saw I had a big one during qualifying at Pala, then another one on Tuesday this week that banged me up pretty good. Nothing broken just need a few days to get back to 100%.”

Despite his crash in the first qualification session in Pala, California, Sexton mounted up for both motos and finished second in each race behind his teammate Jett Lawrence, who was making his Motocross debut and won with a pair of first-place finishes. Sexton padded his SuperMotocross points’ lead over the injured Eli Tomac, who is still second in the combined Supercross and Motocross standings despite missing the SX finale at Salt Lake City and the outdoor opener with a ruptured Achilles tendon.

Sexton has an advantage of 78 points over Cooper Webb and cannot give up his SMX lead by missing this round.

At stake, however, is the risk of losing ground to Lawrence in the Pro Motocross championship. Sexton currently trails his teammate by six points and is liable to lose significant ground this weekend.

In addition to his concussion, Sexton has also been diagnosed with mononucleosis and the combination of the two conditions caused the team to make the difficult decision to keep him out of the lineup at Hangtown.

“I’m super-bummed to miss this weekend’s race,” Sexton said in a press release. “I feel like I rode well at Pala, and I was really looking forward to Hangtown because it’s a good track for me. Unfortunately, I was already pretty banged up from my qualifying crash on Saturday, and now with mono and Tuesday’s concussion on top of it, I want to do the right thing and hopefully be back on the track soon.”

A return date for Sexton has not yet been announced.

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