Points in Pain for Lotus in Hungary

Romain Grosjean was already very satisfied with his 10th place on the grid, achieved thanks to a very good lap in qualifying. But he couldn’t take advantage of this great position due to a missed start, followed by an off-track excursion caused by Carlos Sainz: « I had a catastrophic start and lost a lot of positions. Then I was pushed into the gravel by Carlos Sainz on the first lap. When I got back on track, I couldn’t get past the McLarens. »

This wasn’t the end of his adventures as he then received a five-second penalty for being released too early by his mechanics during his pit stop, wheel to wheel with Felipe Massa: « Then there was the penalty, followed by the safety car. »

Nevertheless, the French driver managed to make a comeback and finish in a beautiful 7th place, his best result of the year: « I think today was an incredible race. It was an incredible weekend. Being in the top 10 in qualifying yesterday was a miracle, and today was very good. We really attacked hard, and it felt good. We deserved to score points. »

For Pastor Maldonado, the race was also eventful but with a far less favorable final result. He was under the stewards’ scrutiny throughout the race: after a penalty following his collision with Sergio Perez, he received a second drive through for speeding in the pit lane, and then incurred a ten-second penalty for overtaking under the safety car regime: « It was a difficult race and the stewards were very strict today. They were hard on me and many other drivers. I struggled at the start because our strategy was to begin with the hardest tires. The strategy was working well with the soft tires until the penalties that affected our race. With Sergio Perez on the outside, I felt it was a racing incident. There was nothing intentional on my part. »