Grosjean: We’ve made good progress with the car

How are you looking forward to the penultimate race of the season?

I can’t wait to go to Brazil because every year we have a fantastic team dinner at a churrascaria where the team who travels around all year can let their hair down a little and share some laughs. It’s been a really tough season - the toughest ever for me and many of the team - so it will be good to enjoy a drink together well before the preparations for the race weekend are underway. I will be raising a caipirinha to everyone in the team in Sao Paulo, then another to everyone back in Enstone too!

Tell us about Interlagos; is it a track you like?

It’s a fantastic track and there’s no part of it that isn’t great. It really suits my driving style so I’m really looking forward to it. Certainly, the E22 is getting more enjoyable to drive and the soft and medium Pirelli tyres - particularly the softs - seemed to work well for us in Texas so there’s good potential.

Is there a specific part of the track you like the most?

Everything! It’s a fantastic challenge of a track which never seems to have a part where you relax. Even the main start-finish ‘straight’ isn’t boring as it starts uphill with some interesting camber, then gradually turns before finishing at the downhill turn one, where it’s so easy to out-brake yourself. If I had to pick favourite parts of Interlagos, I would say the first and last corners; the first corner is really technical and punishes you if you get it wrong, and the last corner is so fast and really puts quite a strain on your body. As a driver I really enjoy these corners. It’s an old style track, so very hard to pick out a single element; I’d say everything is pretty good in Interlagos; I love it!

On a scale of 1-10 how annoyed were you after being displaced from a points scoring position by your countryman in Austin?

About 842! Points have been so very hard won by the team this season so it was really, really frustrating. I think Jean-Eric was trying to launch his car into space using the hill up to turn one as a launch! I didn’t have anywhere to go and he had all four wheels locked-up going sideways. The contact broke my front wing and also some of the floor at the rear too. This made the car quite a handful to drive for the rest of the race. Part of my front wing broke off and was caught on JEV’s car until Toro Rosso returned it afterwards!

With just two races left, are you looking forward to the 2014 season being over?

In many ways, yes. But that said, we’ve made good progress with the car recently so if we can continue as we have been doing then Brazil and Abu Dhabi should be positive races for us. In Sao Paulo anything can happen - especially as you never know what the weather will do and in Abu Dhabi it’s double points so we’ll want to end the year as strongly as possible.

What’s your approach to the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend?

I’m on the hunt for the points I lost out on in Austin. It’s been a really long, hard season and scoring any points is such a great reward for all the hard work that everyone puts in. There have been lots of long hours at Enstone this year, and it’s a lot more difficult when there’s no reward in terms of points at races. I really want to give something good to the team in Interlagos and also in Abu Dhabi so we can end the year with a positive vibe as we look to 2015 which we know will be a far better proposition for us in many ways.