Why F1?
Formula 1 is something very special in my racing career, and you always want to race at the toughest level, so Formula 1 is where you want to race if you have a choice.

How quickly did the deal come about with the Lotus F1 Team?
Everything came together quite quickly. We shared a common goal and everyone was happy. This was the only way to do it and everything went pretty well from there.

What do you think of the team now you’ve completed two days testing?
I’m happy with the team, they are very nice people, very easy going and it was nice to work with them for the two days I did in the R30. I think we’ll have a lot of fun in the season ahead and hopefully we will get some good results. I want a strong enough car to challenge for good results.

When did you decide to finish rallying and to go back to Formula 1?
When I did the NASCAR races, I enjoyed the racing and I want to do more racing. I still want to do rally and if I could I’d do them both at the same time – but this isn’t possible. For sure I will do rallying again in the future. I want to do racing as I had a really good time in NASCAR racing against other people and I realised that I was missing this – that’s when I decided that if there was a good chance to return properly that I would do it.

If you’d been in rallying with sufficient time could you have been as good as Sébastien Loeb?
I don’t know! I don’t think anyone is as good as him right now! For sure I could have improved, but I don’t know how far. I’d improved last year from where I was in 2010. I went to rallying to see how well I could do and I still think that it’s one of the most difficult sports that I have ever tried. It’s not easy! The guys at the front are very fast, but equally if you put them in a Formula 1 car they would probably have a similar story to me in rallying. I think I would need another couple of years with testing. With rallying there are so many different surfaces and it’s completely different from Formula 1.

What are your thoughts on how F1 has changed since you last competed?
In 2010 I didn’t really follow Formula 1 but I saw more races last year. It doesn’t really look different, but there is overtaking in some different places where people can just drive past by opening the rear wing and the driver in front has no chance to defend himself – so is this really overtaking? I don’t think it counts all the time. But for sure the show is better. The tyres make a difference too, as there is a big speed difference between when the tyres are new and when the tyres are old. In the old Formula 1, you had to be so much faster than the guy in front of you to have any chance to overtake, but now with the tyres and the DRS, it’s different.

Do you have anything to prove with your return?
I think people expect things from me, but as long as I know that I’m giving 100% and I’m happy with my driving then I’m happy. If those aspects are true and it’s not enough, then it’s not enough.

How’s your motivation?
There’s always talk about my motivation, written by people who don’t know me and couldn’t have an idea on how strong my motivation is. If I didn’t feel I had the motivation, I would stop. My feeling is that I probably drove some of my best races in my last season in Formula 1 and I was very happy with my performance. I’ve never had any issues with motivation.

What are your thoughts on KERS and DRS – you didn’t have them when you tested the R30.
I’ve driven with KERS before and DRS is just a button. Once you’ve done it a few times it will become automatic.

How well do you know your new team-mate, Romain Grosjean?
I think we will have a good relationship. I met him before Christmas and I raced against him in 2009. He seems a very nice and normal guy, so I don’t see any problems there.

How is your fitness for Formula 1’s challenges after two years rallying?
For sure, the G forces are different, but you get pretty good G forces in some tarmac rallies. The steering is probably a bit heavier in rallying too. You sit in different position and you use different muscles. Rallying overall is probably not as physically tough in short bursts like Formula 1 but it’s pretty mentally tough as you spend the whole week for about 12 hours a day in a car driving. In this way rallying is much more tiring than Formula 1. The driving itself is more physical in Formula 1, but I’m looking forward to getting more sleep.

Lotus F1 Team is fighting to be back at the front, how can you help in this battle?
In my last year at Ferrari we weren’t always at the front but I’m a good racer and I want to get to the front. Lotus started well last year and we hope that the new car will be strong.

How does it feel to have a full-time F1 drive?
It’s just starting to sink in. It’s a dream come true to get this drive. A fantastic emotion and a fantastic challenge as well. I think the team has a really good line-up for this year, with Kimi and myself. Hopefully we can do something special. I think I’ll only truly realise it when we get to Melbourne and I see my name on the official entry list. For now I’m really happy to be at the factory as much as I can, to get involved with the team and get ready for testing.

How do you view this season – you had a part season two years ago – so is this a part-rookie year?
It’s difficult to say how I should view this season. For sure I did seven Grands Prix alongside Fernando [Alonso] and the experience I gained from that was helpful - and is still helpful today. On the other hand there are still some circuits that I don’t know. But I don’t think we can say I’m a rookie, just because of the experience I have. Let’s say that I am a young driver who still has plenty of things to learn in Formula One, but we are all expecting a good season.

How and why is the 2012 specification Romain Grosjean different compared to the 2009 version?
Compared with 2009 I am two years older! No big difference, just an improvement in terms of many small things, including maturity. The 2009 experience was very helpful for me to understand things and grow up from that point. So it was difficult, but very good as well. The 2012 Romain Grosjean sees life a little bit different. My aim is to enjoy my number one passion, Formula One.

How did you get the drive for 2012?
The process for getting the 2012 drive really began with GP2, where my goal was to bring DAMS back to the top and show that I can be a team leader. For sure winning the title was something that we all wanted, but championships can depend on many things. Then there were the two Friday morning sessions in Formula One, which were a real test in terms of seeing if I had the speed, feedback and everything the team was looking for. I knew it was very important and it went well, but then you just have to wait. That was the most difficult part, but I knew I’d done everything - the best I could do - so I had no regrets. I was waiting and just trying to read the faces of the people in the team to imagine what the decision would be! That’s always part of this job. You get used to it year after year.

How have your pre-season preparations gone?
My winter preparations have not been too bad. I’ve just been doing some training until I can drive the car. Fortunately it’s not long until the first test on February 7. I’m trying to come to the factory as much as I can, to spend some time and discuss things with the engineers - grab a beer, or whatever! It’s a long season - 20 Grands Prix plus testing - to spend with the same people and it’s important that you get along well with everyone. I’m very happy to be with them and part of this team. I think I’ve changed since 2009 and the team sees that. The relationship is much stronger and much better today.

What do you expect will be your biggest challenge in 2012?
Formula One is a big, big challenge, but I think the biggest challenge personally will be to get 100 per cent out of myself and the car, every time. No mistakes. That is the life of a Formula One driver. You need to get 100 per cent out of the car, focus, concentrate and improve lap after lap. So I hope we can have a good car from the beginning of the season, some good ambitions going into the first race and just develop all season long.

What do you think of the new car?
From what I’ve seen of the new car so far, I can say that the colours are the same! We will see when get on the track. Hopefully it will be a good car and we can give it a nice nickname after the first test. Then we will try to improve it lap after lap and session after session.

It’s a new tyre supplier since you last race in Formula 1 – do you expect that to make a difference?
I think Pirelli had a really, really good first year in Formula One. There have been some changes for 2012, and I think tyres will be key again. We need to get them working when we need, and save them when we need. Things have changed a lot since the Bridgestone era. It’s part of the show today, to manage your tyres, and we have seen some big, big differences in tyre wear on some tracks which have made Formula One more attractive than a few years ago.

How is your knowledge of the circuits?
I don’t know Albert Park, I don’t know Shanghai, I don’t know Canada, America nobody knows, India I don’t know and Korea I don’t know. So in the early stages of the season I know all the tracks except Albert Park and Shanghai. I know Sepang and Bahrain. We will see what happens.

How does it feel to join the team?
It’s a great feeling to be joining Lotus F1 Team and it’s an exciting next step in my career. I contested a complete season in F1 as a race driver for a smaller team where I learnt a lot about Formula 1. Now I have the opportunity to work with one of the top teams with great potential for my future development. With my recent race experience I know I can make a valuable contribution to the team.

Wouldn’t you rather be racing this year?
Of course, I would love to be racing, but racing with a top team. Being associated with Lotus F1 Team should be more beneficial than racing with a team further down the order. This opportunity is one I couldn’t afford to miss. My desire to get back in a race seat in the future is motivating me to do the best job possible in my new position.

What do you think of Enstone?
I have known the team for a number of years and I am familiar with Enstone. It’s a great facility and another world in size and amount of people; it’s bigger and has so much potential and will give me so much opportunity to learn and develop as a race driver.

There’s a new ‘Driver in the Loop’ simulator being built – will you be using this?
The new simulator will make up a big part of my contribution to the team during the season and it will also keep me sharp; I’m really looking forward to it and can’t wait to start working with it. I can contribute highly to the team in this area. It’s going to be a really intense programme once we’re operational in that area – it’s not just one session a week, it’s full on. It’s a really good tool for pushing development of the car and of myself as a driver so I am looking forward to doing a good job here.

As a driver who contested last season’s championship what can you bring to the team?
I had a great season in Formula 1 and it was a fantastic opportunity but now I’m looking to develop. I can bring a lot more to the team with my race experience than someone who doesn’t have any recent race knowledge. When you’re first in Formula 1, everything is so new and so big. It’s difficult to know where your focus should be, and how you should work, but this improves as your experience comes together. I know the tyres, I know the different compounds, and I have experience of the circuits and car set-up so I can contribute to the discussions with engineers and race drivers. I am very motivated to help the two race drivers and the team in any way I can, and of course I am always ready to get into the car if the opportunity ever arises. Having contested the 2011 season I’m race fit and raring to go.

What do you think of your team-mates, Kimi Räikkönen and Romain Grosjean?
I’ve never met Kimi so I’m looking forward to meeting him. He’s a legend in Formula 1. I’m looking forward to watching him work with the engineers and understanding how a world champion goes about his work. I know Romain pretty well as we’ve raced together and been team-mates, we’re the same generation of drivers, and we work well together.

How about the rest of the squad?
I know most of the team already so it will be great to be working closely with them. I had a great test with the team at the end of 2010 in Abu Dhabi so we all know each other and the feeling is great. I’ve had Eric Boullier as a team manager in GP2 so I know him well too.

How different is 2012 likely to be from 2011?
If you casually flicked through the regulations you’d be forgiven for thinking that there aren’t many differences from last year, however nestling in there are some fairly profound changes. The most notable changes relate to the exhaust. The teams decided around Silverstone in 2011 that we were going to get rid of exhaust blown rear diffusers, and that point alone requires a very different design concept. Recent car designs have been heavily influenced by their rear exhaust configurations, and the intent of the rule is to stop that happening. The rules on the exhaust geometries themselves have been reinforced by some engine operation rules which don’t sit in the technical regulations, but which arrived by Technical Directive quite late last year. The exhaust issue, although agreed in principle at Silverstone, continued to unfold as late as mid-November, so the challenge has been to roll with the punches as the detail emerged over a fairly extended period – trying to make the best of each version of the rules as they’ve come out, whilst trying to anticipate where the end position is going to be. It’s certainly been an area which has preoccupied us and I imagine the rest of the grid too.

How much will the new regulations affect what we see on track?
Last year’s cars had quite a variety of exhaust layouts, with differing levels of success. If the latest rules
really have been successful in resetting the power of the exhausts to a much lower level, then that’s an
opportunity for a reshuffle of the pack.
What are your feelings on working with two new drivers for 2012?
Romain put in two very promising sessions at the end of last season, having not driven an F1 can for more than a year. He jumped in the car and was immediately competitive with our race drivers at the time, in a quite impressive fashion. I think that has gone a long way to getting him the ride for this year. So we’re looking forward to a strong start with him. Kimi’s recent test in Valencia with the R30 showed that he has lost none of his speed and that he is full of appetite for the season ahead. It is going to be great for us to work with a driver of such clear quality.

What is completely new and what is more familiar on the E20?
Depending on where you look, some parts of the new car are a ground-up redesign and in other areas we have further optimised the best bits of the design philosophy we’ve adopted for several seasons. As far as the exhausts are concerned, our forward exhausts would now be illegal under the new rules and didn’t live up to our expectations in any case. So that part of the car we say goodbye to and welcome in a complete re-design. The front and rear suspension layouts are substantially revised to try and give us better aerodynamic opportunities. The front wing is a continuation of the concepts we have worked on since the 2009 rules were published. The rear wing system, we’ve continued to try to work on having a satisfactory level of rear downforce stability, whilst having a maximum DRS switching potential.

How much help is the team’s enhanced 60% wind tunnel for developing the E20?
The 60% wind tunnel has allowed us to expand dramatically the realism of the tests that we perform in our wind tunnel, so we get the car to more realistic steer and yaw values. Those are pretty fundamental things. That hopefully means that the car will be more tolerant of a wider range of cornering conditions.

How do you expect the E20 to perform?
We’ve worked hard and long on the car. We have tried to react to the regulatory picture as it’s unfolded, but we will only really start to be able to judge how well we have done once we start to run the car in pre-season. Even then we won’t really know until qualifying in Melbourne.

The testing schedule is rather different this year – nothing till February, then three tests followed by an in-season test at Mugello – does this make a difference?
The testing schedule with Mugello later on for this year gives us a fairly clear target mid-season. If there is anything particularly ambitious that we can’t achieve at the start of the year, that is the point to aim for because it’s our one opportunity to get a controlled test of an upgrade, rather than the type of compromised test when you run on a Friday.

There are 20 races scheduled and a test part-way through the year – how much of a challenge is this intensity for the season ahead?
The main challenge of 20 races is finding the stamina to keep up with such a gruelling schedule. We are sized appropriately for the current regulations of test bans and no test teams, and so all of the resources that we have to go racing come from the race team. Those 20 races, which kick-off with three pre-season tests that start in February, then go on to late November. With the exception of a brief window in August, where racing stops for a short while, it’s an unrelenting grind for the guys who are the travelling teams. The challenge is to keep your energy up during what is now a very, very long season.

It’s the second season of Pirelli’s return to F1 – what can we expect from the 2012 rubber?
We ran the new Pirelli tyres in the Abu Dhabi test last year. It’s fairly difficult to draw a clear conclusion, because you are not using your regular drivers and this makes it difficult to see the underlying performance of the tyres. But from what we could tell from our instrumentation the 2012 construction was not substantially different in its performance to the 2011 tyre. It remains to be seen how aggressive or otherwise Pirelli will be with their compounding. I’m not expecting big changes.

2012 will also see the second season of DRS can we expect any changes here?
Many teams, including us, spent a lot of time last year trying to find the right balance between stability and drag step. It will be slightly easier a year on to get that balance right. For the FIA, who have the responsibility of selecting the DRS switching point on the circuit, each track last year was a new venture for them A year on it will be much less of an adventure or the FIA to choose exactly where to put the DRS line for best effect. In places where by common consent overtaking was too easy last year they will make an appropriate adjustment to get a better result in 2012.