Qualifying - Hungarian GP report: Lotus Mercedes

Romain Grosjean qualified tenth and Pastor Maldonado fourteenth in sweltering conditions at the Hungaroring today. A stopped McLaren caused a brief red flag period during the second part of qualifying, which presented teams and drivers an additional challenge. Pastor sadly missed out on Q3, but Romain got through and posted his P10 time.

Romain Grosjean

“I think we got everything we could out of the car today, it’s good to be in the top ten. It was a tough qualifying with the wind picking up at the beginning of the session. We struggled a bit with our first run but Q2 was much better. I really pushed hard and put everything together, it was a fantastic lap. Generally, I’m happy with today’s performance and proud of my team for what we have achieved. Tomorrow, temperatures should drop down a little bit which makes it easier, and then hopefully, we can score points.”

Pastor Maldonado

“We had potential for Q3, the pace was there early on, I did a good lap in Q1 and placed in the top ten but unfortunately we were not able to repeat this in Q2. We didn’t have as good a progression as we would have liked, especially with the red flag, and then I locked up in turn one which compromised my lap time. I don’t think this is a position that is representative for us. We’ll see tomorrow, the race pace is there – we showed that in Q1 – the potential is there so I think we can put together a good race and score points.”

Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director

How was qualifying for the team?

It was a reasonable effort from us and certainly a step forward in the final results from where we were yesterday. Q2 was somewhat disrupted by the stopped McLaren and Pastor suffered from this as he’d shown good pace in Q1, but wasn’t able to get a lap to take him into the top ten. Romain did manage to get into the final qualifying with a strong lap from him, and things can still be achieved from P10 on the grid.

What are the considerations for tomorrow’s race?

We’re open on tyre strategy with Pastor whilst Romain will start on his qualifying soft tyres. We’ve seen very hot temperatures here, which means we’ll be closely monitoring tyre degradation as well as engine and brake cooling. We should be able to show better pace in the race, but all will depend on being able to pass or find clean air.