Lotus E23 makes Grosjean a happy driver
Romain Grosjean says this year's Lotus E23 has made him a much happier driver after the struggles with the 2014 car.
After being out of the points for nearly 11 months, Grosjean made it two scores in eight days when he followed up seventh in China with the same result in Bahrain.
The Frenchman agrees that the Lotus E23 has put the smile back on his face after a dreadful 2014 season.
"I've had it since day one," Grosjean told Motorsport.com.
"At least I can understand the car, I can play around with it, I can push hard, and it makes such a big difference to last year, where it was doing whatever it wanted, so I really hated it."
He agreed that the double points finish was a big boost: "It's good for all of our guys, and myself as well. I think we worked hard, we deserved them.
"The [Bahrain] weekend didn't start in the best way, I had really a lot of struggle, and the first time we had a good car was qualifying.
"They did a good job to guess the set-up and go for it in the race. I'm very happy with that. A lot of tyre management of course, but it's good to score some more points.
"Everything was on target. Having a new set of options would have helped the second stint, we should have managed to keep one from qualy, as Red Bull did and other top guys. But the strategy was perfect, so that was good."
Grosjean expects the close battle with Red Bull Racing to continue.
"In China in the race they were less quick, here they were quicker," he said.
"It's good to fight with them, and also in qualifying Sauber is quite quick as well, so there is a good group around who we can fight with."
Share Or Save This Story
RB: Tsunoda “mentally on a different level” in 2024
Andretti planning F2 and F3 entries to promote US talent to F1 team
Andretti F1 team formally opens new Silverstone facility
Romain Grosjean apologises to McLaren after controversial, unfounded comments
Winners and losers from the IndyCar doubleheader at Milwaukee
Mick Schumacher and Romain Grosjean talk on pit road after Milwaukee clash
The Lotus 72 was "an extension of my body," Emerson Fittipaldi reveals
Romain Grosjean turns 40 – here’s his career in 10 key moments
Ayrton Senna's 1986 Lotus F1 car hits auction for eight-figure estimate
Pedro Acosta told KTM he wants to beat Marc Marquez on the same MotoGP bike
What made Red Bull so fast in the Azerbaijan GP after Max Verstappen’s qualifying issue
Has George Russell hit his stride too late? 'With this form I would have been in the fight'
F1 pundit slams Franco Colapinto's "outrageous" Baku crash but rejects Lando Norris's race ban call
Why Mercedes is still quicker than McLaren
Baku late-race chaos almost costs George Russell victory over Max Verstappen
How George Russell claimed his career-best pole margin in F1 Azerbaijan GP qualifying
How the chase to catch Mercedes is unfolding
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments