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He is almost single handedly putting them at the 4th in standings, generated so much hype about the team, gained them millions and millions of fans and put Lotus under the spot lights so many times this year, being on the podium almost half of the races. And there's no doubt of his contribution of them getting the newly sponsorship signed with Coca-Cola

May be the very much criticized Éric Boullier should deserve some credit.

I think there's a bit of exaggeration in terms of his contribution to signing Coca-Cola... swearing on the podium, and a negative public attitude aren't too good, though at the same time his fan collective could well be something that Coca-Cola took into consideration. The fact Burn is largely promoted in Scandinavia (I think... I could be wrong) and Kimi has a massive fan base that they might want to tap into?

I think Lotus would still have surprised many, afterall 3 podiums from RoGro isn't anything to sniff at, given Perez's sudden stardom for the same amount of podiums and similar crash tendencies at the moment, and arguably RoGro has shown more natural speed from time to time. But the fact Kimi has put RoGro in the shade this year has made people think without him Lotus would be absolutely nowhere. Even if they had two RoGro's, they'd be on 200 points as a team, and in exactly the same position in the WCC. Kimi has just dragged them slightly closer to McLaren (nothing to sniff at mind you).

My point is, people seem to overestimate Kimi's importance to the team, as though they'd be nowhere without him. Yes he's important, like any star driver, but he hasn't made THAT big a difference I don't think. If anything actually, Lotus has had more grief since Kimi's been there, given his fan-base's cries of favouritism and mediocracy any time he didn't win a race or got a strategy wrong (not all fans I know, just some of the things I've seen on the forums... bloody armchair experts hehe).

Swearing on the podium, at-least Kimi's bit wasn't that controversial that sponsors would think of it as a factor, he is mature enough to understand that it caused a fuss once and he will not do it again. It is not a habit, it hasn't been.

for? screwing kimi up in bahrain by not asking romain to yield straightway?? and cant perform simple undercut strategy??

Eric later claimed that he doesnt wnt to make romain feel bad...........he treasure romain more than win.

LOL, I had been always told that Kimi coolness was all about never asking for team orders...

He didn't, Lotus realised how stupid it was not letting Kimi through (as any sensible team would do) and told Grosjean to let him past.

That's not the only case of bafflingly poor Lotus strategy that we've seen this year though. Even last race Lotus clearly brought Kimi in too late and, combined with a slow pit stop, really fucked him over.

Kimi has done an outstanding job this year. Not perfect but just very, very good. He's been quick and incredibly mature, picking his fights better than any driver on the grid (that I've seen on the TV feed). Lotus owe him massively. You can tell that they realise this though as they've began to really big him up and talk about him a lot more on their Twitter feed, for example (e.g. Mini-Kimi).

Yes he did.

If Kimi wasnt in the team , the team would have been sold by now. Probably F1 would be in danger of losing fans as well