Romain Grosjean scores new points for Lotus in Brazil

Romain Grosjean had to start from far back since he was only 14th on the starting grid. He managed to make up for this initial deficit, notably thanks to a very good stint that put him back in the race for points. Towards the end of the race, he managed to get the best of his rivals, especially his teammate, Pastor Maldonado: « It was a fun race and I enjoyed being able to move up the field thanks to some nice overtakes and an aggressive race strategy. It was tough to follow the cars but we had enough power to overtake at the first corner. »

The French also did not forget the heavy international context, and these two points collected provided a bit of comfort: « It was a very emotional weekend. So, it feels good to score some points. »

Pastor Maldonado started from even further back as he only managed the 17th fastest qualifying time but started 16th thanks to Daniel Ricciardo’s penalty. Being so far back, he could only try a different strategy. That’s what he did by making only two stops instead of the three made by most of the field: « *We used a different strategy from the others with slower but more durable tires in the first stint. It was then difficult to make progress against those on softs. But when we switched to the softs, we were able to push harder in the second stint and thus gain several places.* »

Nevertheless, the Venezuelan had another incident when he sent Marcus Ericsson into a spin at the end of the pit straight. As a result, he received a five-second penalty which he had to serve during his last stint. This allowed his closest rivals to catch up to him. Two laps from the end, he thus had to give up his tenth place to Max Verstappen, which could only disappoint Federico Gastaldi, the team’s director: « It’s really unfortunate that Pastor received a penalty. Without it, he would have finished at least 10th and it’s very frustrating for all of us. »