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These are unedited comments from the Lotus F1 Team: Pastor
Maldonado drove an impressive, measured race to take seventh
position whilst Romain Grosjean suffered from a gearbox issue to
halt his charge in the Austrian Grand Prix. Both drivers ran to
one-stop strategies, with Romain starting on his qualifying
super soft Pirellis and Pastor starting on the harder soft tyres.
Pastor eked out a long performance life from the super softs,
passing cars late into his final stint. Romain’s car was brought
into retirement at the end of lap 35.
Romain started from P9 on the grid on his qualifying super
soft compound tyres, changing to new soft tyres on lap 23. He
retired from the race with a gearbox issue on lap 35.
Pastor started from P10 on the grid on new soft tyres, changing
to new super soft tyres on lap 37.
Grosjean leading Maldonado
(Image: Lotus F1 Team)
Romain Grosjean, DNF, E23-04
“Of course it’s disappointing to retire from the race. We had
good potential after the pit stop and it was good to be able to
pass some cars with some side-by-side action. We were P8 when we
retired and the car was feeling good. I just lost my gears and
there was nothing we could do other than retire. Let’s hope our
bad luck is behind us as we head to Silverstone confident of
showing well again.”
Pastor Maldonado, P7, E23-03
“It’s great to get another seventh position and the points that
come with it. It was a big moment fighting with Max. The super
soft tyres were very hot so losing their grip and you lose a lot
of downforce close to the car ahead, but everything was under
control! I wanted to get the position and I think we deserved
it. It seems like we’re coming into a good time of the season
for us so we’ll all keep working hard to continue scoring points."
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal
"That was a fantastic drive from Pastor to take his second
consecutive seventh position this season. It was a tough
tactical race where he saved fuel in his first stint then
managed his tyres, doing everything that was asked of him from
the pit wall, plus showing us an incredible bit of car control
right at the end too. We are sorry that Romain was unable to
make the finish and we will do everything to diagnose and
rectify the issue as he too was on course for a great result.
Once more, with the pace shown this weekend, we have shown our
potential to score strong points in the races ahead.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director
"That was a very lively end to the race to highlight a fantastic
drive from Pastor. He did lose positions at the start, so after
that we used a very aggressive strategy to get past Sergio Perez
and thereafter Pastor managed the super soft tyres very well
indeed for almost a half-race distance. This included a great
dice with Max Verstappen in the final laps, which Pastor won to
take seventh. Romain would have been well up in the points too
but suffered from what looks like a gearbox issue so our joy is
tempered by the knowledge we have to find and fix whatever issue
affected him." |
