Lotus: Grosjean victim of a faulty sensor during the Spanish GP

Fifth on the grid, the Franco-Swiss driver managed to keep both Ferraris behind him at the first corner but later had to give up ground, eventually finishing eighth. However, this performance does not reflect the true potential of his car, which suffered a sensor failure on its power unit.

During the 24th and 25th laps of the Grand Prix, we witnessed overtaking maneuvers carried out very easily by Kimi Räikkönen followed by Fernando Alonso, during which Romain Grosjean seemed unable to defend himself. He explains why: « It was really bad in the car. A sensor failure led to other problems. I think I was running on five or six cylinders depending on what it decided to do. »

« We lost it around the 12th lap. It created a few other issues, like losing the quick gear changes. It was a bit precarious in the car and not very powerful on the straight line, but overall we can be proud of our weekend and it’s good to score the first points » he states.

Simon Rebreyend, Renault Sport F1 track support manager, interviewed by *Autosport*, tells us more about the issues faced by the Lotus driver: « Unfortunately, Romain was unable to hold off the Ferraris because a calibration problem caused a power loss from the first part of the race. We need to look at what we can do to fix this for the upcoming races. »

Romain Grosjean, on his part, prefers to be a good sport. Even without these problems, he admits: “Of course it would have been better to contain the two Ferraris, and it would have been much more difficult for them to overtake me, but the track conditions today did not favor us. We struggled a bit with the cooler temperature and the slightly green track…” Finally, he even allows himself a touch of humor: “But overall it’s all good and we’ve definitely earned a good beer.”