Grosjean makes his mark

At the tenth time of asking Romain Grosjean finally scored his first F1 points.

In a mixed Chinese Grand Prix for Lotus the French-Swiss driver used a two-stop strategy to come through the field from tenth on the grid to finish sixth. Grosjean failed to finish either of the first two races of 2012 after promising qualifying performances but redeemed the situation in fine style at the Shanghai International Circuit.

“It was a very good race, I really enjoyed it,” said Grosjean. “The car felt great and the team did an amazing job to give us such a big improvement from Friday, so I’m especially happy for the guys to be able to finish the race and get some good points on the board. To be up there fighting with McLaren and Red Bull is a great feeling and I’m happy to have got my season started properly. We’ve had high hopes since P3 on the grid in Melbourne, and now after a few setbacks it’s time to aim higher. There’s always room to improve and hopefully from here we can aim for the top five and eventually podiums. We’ll take things step by step but I’m feeling confident for the rest of the season ahead.”

Grosjean’s fortunes contrasted with those of team-mate Kimi Räikkönen who ran a similar strategy from fourth on the grid but lost places in the final third of the race when his tyres began to fade. He ultimately finished outside the points. “We tried to run two stops as it looked to be the fastest strategy and up until the last ten laps it was looking good, but we ran out of tyre performance at the end,” said the 2007 World Champion. “I was stuck behind Felipe (Massa) for quite a while and couldn’t get past as I wasn’t fast enough in the right parts of the track to make a move. Even if I’d got past I don’t think it would have made the greatest amount of difference to the final result. We had good pace in the race, we tried a different strategy and it didn’t pay off today; it’s as simple as that.”

“We were a little bit too aggressive with our strategy,” added team principal Eric Boullier. “As soon as we understood some cars were doing three stops it was clear there was potential for us to finish on the podium, but we were not expecting the tyre wear to be as high as it was. For Romain the strategy worked; for Kimi it did not. The positives from this weekend are that we continue to show good qualifying and race pace with the E20.”