Sunday: Maldonado believes he had “nowhere to go” at Lotus

Romain Grosjean (#8) – 12th

After a season start marked by reliability issues, Romain Grosjean’s weekend went smoothly: « It’s good not to have had any problems during the weekend, and we were able to finish the race with both cars. » This allows the Frenchman to finally grasp the difference with previous years: « It’s not easy – with fuel management and the energy recovery system – so there’s a bit more mental work in the cockpit. »

Romain Grosjean acknowledges that his car’s performance is not consistent: sometimes fast, the E22 can also truly struggle with rear grip. But Lotus now has a chance to progress with this week’s testing: « By chance, we now have two days of testing in Bahrain, so we can try different setups to have a car a bit more to our liking. »

Pastor Maldonado (No.13) – 14th

The Venezuelan finally finished a race with the E22, with a car that was faster in the race than in qualifying: « We were using an interesting two-stop strategy, which was working before the incident. » Pastor Maldonado refers to the incident with Esteban Gutierrez, for which he does not consider himself completely responsible despite the penalties imposed by the FIA: « I need to review the footage to see what was happening, given that Esteban seemed completely off the first corner’s trajectory – maybe he missed his braking point, I don’t know – and I found myself in the corner with nowhere to go. » The Lotus driver explains that he was coming straight out of the pits, with cold tires, which didn’t make things easier.

« I think it’s really bad luck and it’s good that he was able to get out of the car immediately. » The Lotus driver then expressed his satisfaction with his team’s result, seeing both their cars finish today, and emphasized the work to be done: « Now we have to learn from this race and push hard for Shanghai. »