Frenchman's team hoping to build on strong race in Shanghai
Tuesday 21 April 2015 12:57, UK
Romain Grosjean reckons it won’t be until the start of the European season before Lotus know whether they will be able to really challenge Williams.
Both the Frenchman and his team head into this weekend on the up after they picked up their first points of 2015 in China last Sunday.
Grosjean came home seventh behind Williams pair Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, with the Finn told over the radio that the Mercedes-powered Lotus E23 was quicker than his own car.
That tallies with Grosjean’s assessment that, for now, Lotus are aiming for “seventh and eighth in qualy and maybe a bit better in the race”. But he hopes an indication of whether that might change will come by next month’s Spanish GP when Lotus introduce a major upgrade.
“It could be they are probably half a second quicker than we are for now, which seems to be a lot and not much at the same time,” he said on Thursday. “Sometimes it takes just one update going in the right direction to take it, and that’s something we’ll probably know by Barcelona – if we’re going in a good direction or not.”
With Pastor Maldonado also in the points in Shanghai prior to a couple of spins and a collision with Jenson Button’s McLaren, his team-mate said that Lotus got all they could from the car last weekend.
However, Grosjean thinks they can do even better in Bahrain, which is the season’s first night race. “I think on paper we would prefer driving here than Shanghai,” he said. “But then is the car going to work well? That’s something to see.
“It’s very tricky with P1 and P3 being very hot and then P2, qualy and the race being at night. It makes quite a big difference.”
Grosjean also said that he was happy to be driving a more predictable car than last year’s, which had a fundamental aerodynamic problem as well as poor driveability with its Renault power unit.
“I think we’ve got clear ideas of where we need to go and what we need to do on the car,” added Grosjean, who turns 29 on Friday. “And they’ve been there since day one; we’ve been to different tracks, always different limitations and the behaviour of the car is always the same. So it’s very positive.
“[I’m] much more happy with the car. No surprises, which is quite nice – driving around the track and you can push it 100 per cent. And when you have a bit of a snap it’s not a second and a half that goes away, it’s a tenth. That makes a huge difference.”
