Grosjean: It’s a great starting point

Romain produced a superb performance to guide his E20 from P10 to P6 in a frantic race at the Shanghai International Circuit. The Frenchman speaks of his satisfaction after grabbing his first points of the season, and his best result in Formula 1 to date.

Romain, first of all a huge congratulations; from only having done a handful of laps to not just finishing the race, but finishing it in style and achieving your best result in Formula 1 so far. It must be a great feeling?

I’m very happy, both for myself and for the team. Everyone has worked extremely hard and deserved a good result. We had to wait a bit to get it but now we have that in the bag and some good points on the board. There is still more to come from both myself and the guys and we have some work to do before we have a completely clean race, but I’m really proud of how we recovered from Friday’s pace and very happy with what we achieved today. It’s a great starting point.

Speaking of starting points, before the weekend you said you wanted to draw a line under the first two races and that your season starts here; you’ve certainly kicked it off with a bang!

Yes, for me the season has finally begun! Racing is all about ups and downs; we’ve certainly had the down side already and hopefully that is behind us now. I think we can be very happy with what we did today and hopefully that form will continue in Bahrain and for the rest of the season.

You made a bold strategy call but it turned out to be the right one; at one stage of the race it must have been difficult to know where you were! How nerve-wracking was it towards the end with everything changing so much?

We had to fight in different parts of the field all through the race and it was quite hard to know where I was! For example when Jenson (Button) overtook me, I didn’t know whether we were racing for position or what was going on! It was tough for everybody out there and we saw huge tyre degradation; when they start to let go it’s really difficult to recover. The last stint was very long so we had to take care of the tyres; those last six laps were probably the longest of my life! I knew the tyres were on the edge for everybody and if they drop off then its game over. Luckily I kept them going until the end and it was nice to finish that way. P6 is a good result starting from P10.

You had a big moment towards the end where you went wide tussling with Mark (Webber); do you think you could maybe have caught up to the cars in front if that hadn’t happened?

You never know. Maybe I was a bit too ambitious against Mark and I didn’t expect that amount of marbles on the outside line. I just caught the edge of them, and once you’re out there you can’t do anything. Anyway, it’s a mistake I won’t make again and this is a very good result if you look at the McLarens and Red Bulls who were very strong but not far in front. Without that mistake from myself and a with a better pit stop maybe we could have done a bit better, so there are still areas where I can improve and still areas where the team can make up some time, but it’s looking very positive for the future. The team have given me a fantastic car, and with a few improvements and a decent qualifying position I think we can achieve some great results.

What do you make of the field as a whole? We’ve got a few new teams competing at the front and a new winner; it looks a lot closer this season than in previous years...

Today’s race was fantastic; it was tough but I really enjoyed myself on the track. We’ve never seen a Q2 session that tight before and in the race there were battles right through the field. It wasn’t easy for us in the cars but it’s fantastic for the fans and for Formula 1 as a sport. I’m really excited for the rest of the season, it looks like it’s going to be very close and very competitive; I can’t wait for the next race already!

Source: www.lotusf1team.com