A difficult day for Romain Grosjean

A difficult day for Romain as the Frenchman struggled for both grip and clean air – not to mention a lack of KERS – through a tricky mixture of wet and dry conditions. The reigning GP2 Series Champion has come back from similar positions in the past however, and he can do it again…

Romain, it didn’t look like the easiest qualifying session for you; tell us what happened.

It was a tricky afternoon. I couldn’t seem to find the grip in Q1 and we also lost the KERS towards the end which didn’t help so I just about made it through. In Q2 I got stuck in traffic when the track was at its best, then the rain came down heavier just as I was going for my fast lap so the conditions were very difficult. It is what it is; sometimes qualifying can go this way and we’ll just have to make the best of it in the race.

Does the fact that you have a five place grid penalty make this any easier or harder to take?

You can look at it both ways I think. On one side it’s not such a big deal as if I had pole position and had to drop back to sixth which would be really disappointing, but on the other side I would already have been quite far back in fifteenth so to move all the way to twentieth is another big hurdle to overcome. Either way a penalty is obviously a bad thing so we’d rather not have it!

You came from a long way back in Silverstone; does this make you confident you can do the same here?

If we can find the pace that we know is there in the car then for sure we can move up the field. My biggest concern today was the lack of pace in Q1 when the track was dry. I was really struggling for grip and to be almost a second behind Kimi is far too big of a gap. We’ll be working hard overnight to analyse what happened and get the best setup for the race. Let’s see what we can do…