On this day five years ago, the reformed Lotus F1 finished second and third in the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix. It was the team's first podium success after its period as Renault's works team had ended.

Kimi Raikkonen had joined to the team after a tw-year stint in the World Rally Championship. Alongside him, Romain Grosjean got a second chance at Formula 1 after winning the 2011 GP2 Series title. But the winner of the race was Sebastian Vettel, during a purple period for the Red Bull driver on his way to his third world championship title.

Raikkonen and Grosjean would repeat their success in Hungary later in the year, and in the next Bahrain Grand Prix. That was followed by further double podiums in Germany and Korea. There were also two Grand Prix wins for Raikkonen in Abu Dhabi in 2012 and Australia in 2013.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.

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