F1: Grosjean’s Front Row Spot Shows Lotus Has Pace

Formula 1

F1: Grosjean’s Front Row Spot Shows Lotus Has Pace

Lotus diver feels confident heading into Hungarian Grand Prix...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted July 28, 2012 Budapest (HUN)

Romain Grosjean of France and Lotus prepares to drive during qualifying for the Hungarian Formula One Grand Prix at the Hungaroring on July 28, 2012 in Budapest, Hungary. (Photo: Getty Images)

Romain Grosjean has given Lotus its first front row slot of the season by qualifying second in Hungary.

Grosjean has already had a third place this year, but for the most part Lotus has struggled for one lap pace, leaving its drivers with a lot of work to do on Sunday.

Grosjean, who has had early contact with other cars in six out 10 races this year, also had a crash in practice yesterday. However today everything came together for him.

“We started the weekend coming back from the German Grand Prix which was a bit of a disaster for ourselves,” said Grosjean. “And it didn’t start in the best way. But then we worked hard, tried to analyze what was wrong on the car and why I couldn’t get the feeling that I had at the start of the year. P3 was getting better and then the start of qualifying was very difficult, with the first one getting a nightmare.

“But then we found back the speed, improved the car, tried to understand what was wrong with it, and being here on the front row is something special – especially here at the Hungarian Grand Prix where we know overtaking is very difficult. We need to start from the front, we said that since a long time – so first job done.”

Grosjean is confident that the car will still have its usual strong race pace.

“Normally it’s better on high fuel than on low fuel, so it’s pretty good to be on the front row. We have been maybe working a bit more this week on qualifying because we know it’s a big key for the race.
“So, hopefully tomorrow the car will feel pretty well with the tank fueled and the setup we normally run for the race. Hopefully that’s the case. Hopefully we manage to save our tires as much as we want,
as much as we can, and then we have good pace.”

He also admitted that he’d had some struggles in recent races.

“We had some signs on the car that things were not going as we wanted. The car was not handling as it should, and we were not working the tires properly, so we have been working in that direction, trying to get back to a normal set-up, to try to avoid every other aspect that could influence this.

“I think being second today is a bit of a surprise after we struggled, but we improved lap after lap and that's good and the track rubbered in and I think that helped us.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.