Grosjean: We can keep moving forwards

Fresh from the red hot tarmac at the Sepang International Circuit, Romain talks tyres, setup and GP2 as he gives us the rundown on Friday’s events here in Malaysia

Romain, how happy are you with progress made so far this weekend?

It’s gone well so far. This is not an easy track to set the car up for, and the heat makes the tyres quite hard to manage. We’ve been trying a few different things with the setup today and we now have a much better idea of what works and what doesn’t. We’ll be spending a lot of time analysing all the data to make sure we have the best car possible for the rest of the weekend.

Do you think there is the potential in the car around this track to reach the same level of performance as in Melbourne?

It’s hard to say at the moment. Of course, if we find the ideal setup then I’m confident we can achieve the same sort of pace but at the moment we are in between a setup that is good and one that is perfect so we need to keep working hard. As always we want to be pushing for the top positions and scoring good points in every race, so we’ll be doing all we can to make that happen.

How important will the morning practice session tomorrow be to the rest of the weekend?

It will be important as always. We have to make the most of the time we have to get the car in the best possible shape we can. It seems like all the teams experienced high levels of tyre degradation today, although it got a bit better later in the afternoon. Again, finding the right setup around here is very important, so we’ll look to use the maximum time possible to put ourselves in a good position for qualifying.

Qualifying last week must have been very memorable for you. Does this boost your confidence going into tomorrow’s session?

We can take a lot of positives from Melbourne and of course the aim is to carry that form over to this weekend in Malaysia, but at the end of the day this is a new race and what we do from here is what counts. I have a lot of faith in the team, I love being a part of it and everyone is working very hard so it will be nice to reward them with some strong results.

The team started strongly in 2011 but perhaps did not match its expectations by the end of the year. How confident are you that the team can continue its form so far this year throughout the season?

Last year the team made a brave decision to try a forward facing exhaust system and unfortunately it didn’t quite work out as we hoped, but that’s all part of the risks you take to move forward in Formula 1. This year I think the car has a very strong base line and the guys at the factory are already working hard on updates, so I’m confident we can keep moving forwards.

As we’re at the opening weekend of the GP2 season and you are the reigning Champion, who is your tip for the title in 2012?

That’s a hard one! The DAMS team is in good shape which is always nice to see as they were the team that took me to the title last year. Esteban (Gutiérrez) looks strong as well, but who knows. It’s a tough series with some great drivers, so we’ll have to wait and see.