Lotus retains Grosjean

17/12/2012

Twenty-four hours after winning the 2012 Race of Champions, Romain Grosjean gets the perfect Christmas present when Lotus confirms that he will partner Kimi Raikkonen again in 2013.

This means that the former Renault team is one of only four teams that will field an unchanged squad next season.

Although, his first full season in F1 saw him make the headlines for all the wrong reasons, including a number of first lap incidents including that in Spa which took out Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton in the first corner, he achieved a number of strong results including podiums in Bahrain (P3), Canada (P2) and Hungary (P3), finishing the Drivers' Championship in eighth position.

"It's fantastic for me to be continuing with Lotus F1 Team for 2013," said Grosjean. "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. I've already had my seat fitting and spoken with all the personnel involved with the build of the new car ; I just can't wait to get behind the wheel."

"Romain is a great talent and we are pleased that he is continuing with us for a second season," added team boss Eric Boullier, who is also the French driver's manager. "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. We were regular visitors to podiums in 2012 and we certainly intend to continue with this trend in 2013."