Romain Grosjean looking to progress

With the weather conspiring against him, Romain finds himself out of position in P11 for tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix. Despite this, our favourite Frenchman is looking at the positives ahead of the race…

You weren’t 100% happy with the car yesterday; was today an improvement?

The car certainly felt better today so we’re keeping our fingers crossed that it’s back to the way I like it. This morning in FP3 it was pretty good and I should have been around P2 with a clean run. Qualifying went well to start with; in Q1 I didn’t push too hard and we were where we needed to be. Then in Q2, we stuck to our plan of using scrubbed tyres for the first run followed by a new set for the second. The shower came at just the wrong time. In retrospect we should have stayed on the safe side, but it’s always a difficult choice to make in these situations. On the out lap with the new tyres I could already see a wall of spray and we weren’t able to set a quick time. My lap on the scrubbed tyres was just not quick enough to take me through to Q3. On the plus side, I can start on new tyres tomorrow so we’ll have to have a good look at strategy.

What has been changed on the car to get it more to your liking?

We changed quite a few things from yesterday and finally it’s staying as we think it should be with the setup. We made some decent changes overnight and through FP3, so let’s see if they work tomorrow and beyond.

What are your expectations for the race?

The car is normally good on long runs. Of course, you never know what the weather is going to do. We seem to lack a bit of downforce in the rain so a dry race would be better for us; we certainly have a lot of new dry tyres in our pocket if that is the case. A wet race can always hold some surprises and in the first races of the season you have to seize every opportunity you can.

Does the circuit layout lend itself to moving forwards if you have the pace tomorrow?

For sure; it’s not like Monaco here so there is always a chance. Let’s see what happens.