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The
Lotus F1 Team display shards of promise as they
continue in a concentrated effort for
progression during the 2014 F1 season
The fourth round of the F1 World Championship
got underway at the Shanghai International
Circuit for the Chinese Grand Prix.
A solid qualifying from Romain Grosjean saw him
start in tenth place, the first top-ten grid
start for the team since the start of the season.
Pastor Maldonado however, was unable to qualify
due to engine problems and began from the very
back of the pack, in P22.
Both Lotus F1 Team drivers had a good start from
lights out and for the first half of the race
hopes were high for a points finish from Romain.
Disappointingly, during lap 28 he suffered with
gearbox issues and unable to engage fourth gear
he was then forced to retire from the race, much
to the team’s disappointment. Pastor on the
other hand, drove a consistently solid race and
advanced eight places, finishing in P14.
Romain Grosjean DNF, E22-03: “We started
by losing fourth gear but it got worse and
essentially we lost all gears. It’s the first
time we’ve had a problem like this so we’ll have
to understand what happened. It had been quite
nice in the race as we’d been fighting for ninth
position so we were in the points, which is a
good improvement from before. We didn’t make it
to the end of the race today but let’s hope we
finish in the points in Barcelona."
Pastor Maldonado P14 E22-01: “Today
wasn’t my best race ever but we finished. My
pace wasn’t fantastic but at least we moved
forwards and I pushed as hard as I could. We
will look at the data as we seemed to lack pace
on the straights which made it difficult to
overtake and also difficult to defend. It will
be nice to have a race weekend without any
problems, and that’s what we are all working for
when we head to Europe."
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal:
"For Romain it was another frustrating day but
we can see there is clear progress as he
qualified and was racing in the top ten for
points. For Pastor, it was a tough day as he was
forced to start from the back due to yesterday’s
problems, but he delivered everything we wanted
from him with some strong lap times during the
course of his race. We took another step forward
in terms of pace here and we are pushing for
another step forward in Barcelona.”
The team look forward to the Spanish Grand Prix
as they head to Europe for the fifth round of
the competition, which takes place at the on the
11 May 2014.
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