Romain Grosjean: The gap to the win is not that big…

He scored his first Formula 1 podium with third place in Bahrain. He now comes to Valencia off the back of his first second place finish at the Canadian Grand Prix. Can Romain Grosjean go one step further in Valencia?

After that second place in Montréal, how close to your first victory do you think you are?

The gap to the win is not that big. We need to qualify better, that is not our strength this season but we are working on it. I think Friday and Saturday were quite difficult for us in Canada but we have been learning a lot about the car so it’s good that we now have that in our pocket for the next races.

You didn’t say much about it at the time, but what happened to your foot during the race in Canada?

I had a lot of blisters on the underneath of one of my feet after the race. When you’re in the car and the adrenaline is up you don’t notice so much, but afterwards it was pretty sore. Luckily Kimi’s physio had some blister patches which saved me on the flight back to Paris. It wasn’t a big deal.

We know you enjoy street circuits; Valencia is another one of these, and it’s likely to be pretty warm too… the signs seem to bode well for a good weekend for you?

It’s a good thing to start with for sure. I made my Formula 1 debut here in 2009, so it brings back good memories and it’s a circuit I like anyway. There’s always a great atmosphere too; the city centre is obviously very close, and the America’s Cup harbour is a really nice place to go. The track itself it quite interesting; there are a few second / third gear corners, some high speed sectors, heavy braking zones and usually good weather too so on paper it’s a circuit that could suit us quite well. Hopefully this will be the case!

This circuit has quite a rough surface compared to Monaco and Montréal; this has suited the E20 in the past, do you expect the same here?

This is normally a good thing for us. Strategy will be quite different here I think; it won’t be one stop like in Montréal that’s for sure! It’s usually been very hot here in the past so combined with the rough track that’s often lead to a three stop strategy. Hopefully we’ll have consistent conditions throughout the weekend so we can get as much experience as possible before the race.

You’ve got a pretty good record here in the GP2 Series; does that give you confidence heading into the race?

I had a podium in the first GP2 race here in 2008 and was leading the second race until somebody took me out! Then I managed to win in 2011, so it’s a circuit I’m comfortable with for sure. It definitely helps to know the track already as it usually takes less time to get up to speed and you have a rough idea of where the braking points, turn ins and so on will be. Of course, Formula 1 is always a bit different but at least I have some guidelines going into the weekend.

You’re coming off the back of a great result in Canada; what do you think is possible in Valencia?

We have to go into every weekend aiming for a win; approaching a race in any other way is like putting yourself on the back foot from the start. I’m mainly hoping for an improvement in qualifying, a good start and then we’ll see what happens from there. It’s great to be fighting at the front and that’s always what we want to do, but we’re in a tight battle this season so of course the most important thing is to score some good points again for the team. If we have a strong weekend from the start then I think we are capable of fighting for a podium or even a win. We’ll see after qualifying where we are; hopefully we can get another good result!