Grosjean hopes to perform well in Hungary

The Lotus has always performed quite well in hot conditions, and that will be the case this weekend in Hungary on the Hungarian circuit. Romain Grosjean hopes that these good performances will continue for this Grand Prix.

« It’s a weekend where indeed the weather should be nice and very hot, so we will suffer physically, but it’s a circuit that is quite nice where we have good memories from the past. We know that hot temperatures normally work in our favor, so I hope that will be the case here again, » the Frenchman said during a press briefing.

Everything seems to be shaping up well for Grosjean and the Lotus team, but work will be needed beforehand: On paper, there are many things going in the right direction, but once again, it’s the work that always pays off, and work begins tomorrow with testing, understanding the new tires, understanding the car, working throughout the sessions to find the best settings, and once we have the right settings and have defined the right strategy for the race, everything becomes easier.

The first point to implement will be to test the new tires brought by Pirelli, as neither Grosjean nor Räikkönen drove at Silverstone: « The first thing to work on will be the new Pirelli tires brought this weekend and getting the best out of them. There are some questions when we get here, we know that F1 cars are quite complex and that many things revolve around the track and what connects the car to the track are the tires, there are indeed questions. We will start tomorrow on familiar grounds, which are those of the Nürburgring, and which are sound, and from there we will work and evolve our setup for everything new we have. »

The Frenchman remains confident because he knows that his car has been continuously evolving since the beginning of the year: The team continues to work hard and bring new parts to each Grand Prix.

The layout of the Hungaroring is known for being difficult for overtaking, and the FIA has decided to implement a second DRS zone after the first corner, but the Lotus driver believes it won’t necessarily be of much help: « We can get close on the straight, but it won’t be easy. We’ll need to be much faster than the car in front of us, but we can try. »

Following the incident of a tire loss on Mark Webber’s Red Bull in Germany, the FIA decided to reduce the number of people present in the pit lane and also the speed of the cars. Grosjean believes that the number of people in the pits wasn’t an issue during testing: « The only time it’s a bit stressful is the grid setup because there are many people and equipment around. » What will mostly change according to him is the lowering of the maximum speed in the pits: « We have reduced the speed from 100 to 80 km/h in the pit lane, and we will have to adapt to the braking to activate the pit lane speed limiter, and it might favor certain strategies over others because we will lose time in the pit lane. It’s certain that today, a pit stop will cost more time than it did before, so if we can save one during the race, it could make a big difference. » The Frenchman estimates this loss to be about two seconds per stop.

When asked about his future, Romain Grosjean expressed that he hopes to continue with the Lotus team, but he will need to perform well on the track to achieve that: « The only certainty I have today is that I need to keep having good races and be consistent to secure a place in Formula 1. I’m quite happy with this team and we work well together, so the idea is to continue together in the future. It will take the right path when we have solid results every weekend. »

From our special correspondent at the Hungaroring