Grosjean: Again “a story of tires”

Romain Grosjean qualified in 7th position in Barcelona but the Frenchman will ultimately start from 6th position due to the penalty imposed on Felipe Massa who had placed his Ferrari just ahead of Grosjean’s Lotus.

Even though it’s still a good performance, Grosjean remarked during a press briefing in the Lotus motorhome that it could have been better: « It’s not a bad result, we’re in Q3, we have a car that works quite well. Well now, it’s true on the second lap that I attempt in the third part of qualifying, I mess up, I go a bit straight. Why? We’ll look into it and from that moment, given the gaps, it was pointless to continue the lap. We could have been a bit better placed on the grid. We worked very well with the team, we’re continuing on from Bahrain and the car is much more pleasant to drive and that’s the main thing. »

Tire degradation is quite evident this weekend as the Lotus driver shared: « Yesterday, we saw a lot of tire degradation, especially the front tires. Today, with the temperatures rising, it seems a little better, although, when you look at the tires of the cars in Parc Fermé, some of them don’t look very nice. So once again, it will be a matter of saving and preserving the tires and trying to have the best possible strategy. »

But Kimi Räikkönen’s teammate is not too worried about this tire issue: “We have a car that is rather good, which is designed around the idea of preserving the tires, it’s part of the success and I hope it will be the case again tomorrow.”

Another problem arose in Barcelona, the wind, but Grosjean and his engineers managed to find a solution: « The wind is quite an important factor. It significantly affects our car. Yesterday it was particularly true, so we learned a bit from that, and today it was better. »

For the race, the Franco-Swiss has no specific goal; he primarily wants to get a good start and stay clear of potential problems: « You need to try to get a good start, see where you are behind, and then know when to attack and manage. It’s certain that you can’t drive at 100% from start to finish, so you always need to keep that in mind. »

From our special correspondent in Barcelona