“Apart from that, being on the pit wall with the engineers and looking at
the data is always useful.
“You get another perspective on how the cars are performing, where the
differences are, what can be improved and so on.
“I can still learn a lot from Kimi (Raikkonen) too. He has a huge amount
of experience.
“As a team-mate he is both challenging and fantastic; challenging because
he is so quick and has abilities I have yet to develop. But fantastic
because he is also a great example to follow in the way he can switch his
mind set so quickly during a race weekend to be entirely focused on the job.
“Apart from actually being in the car, I think the weekend in Monza was
the best preparation I could have for Singapore.”
In his first weekend outing for Lotus as reserve, D’Ambrosio finished 13th
after qualifying 15th, arguably a disappointment for Boullier given the
potential of the car.
To the contrary, however, as he said: “Jerome lost KERS at the start of
the race and around Monza that is a big, big loss. In lap time it is nearly
a second.
“If you look at the pace he had on the option (tyre) in the second part
of the race he was matching the pace of the car in front.
“He did a very nice job. I was very satisfied. Being fair, he did an
impressive job because he didn’t make any mistake, building up his speed
through the weekend.”
D’Ambrosio’s appearance, however, is likely to be a one off this year, with
next to no chance of even an outing in Friday practice.
“I don’t think it’s under consideration,” added Boullier with regard
to the prospect of seeing D’Ambrosio again this season.
“If we can afford to do it, we will do it, but with the championship
being so close we want to fight and use any resources or means we can to
give us all the chances to do well.”