Romain Grosjean expects the upcoming Italian Grand Prix venue to suit his Lotus E23 better than Spa-Francorchamps, where he secured a stunning podium finish last Sunday.
The Frenchman had been on pace all weekend in Belgium and qualified fourth, while team-mate Pastor Maldonado also highlighted Lotus’ speed by starting from seventh. Fresh off the back of his 10th career podium, Grosjean believes his team can up its game even further next weekend.
“On paper, Monza should suit our car better than Spa so in theory a podium could be possible again!” he said.
“You need your car to be as slippery as possible and quick in a straight line, and in that regard we’ve looked pretty strong so far in 2015.”
“Of course, we don’t know how our performance relative to our rivals will stack up until we get there, but I’m certainly going out for the strongest result possible, as I always do.”
Grosjean’s podium finish at Spa only came after relieving Sebastian Vettel of third place when he suffered a tyre failure on the penultimate lap of the race. But the 29-year-old insists he would have still been able to overtake the Ferrari if it had continued running.
“I was closing in on him pretty quickly and I’d have done everything I could to get past him. He’s a pretty tough competitor, but I was VERY determined at that point.”
“It’s only a shame that he did have his tyre issue on track as I was really looking forward to fighting him for that position and I’m convinced I would have taken the final podium spot.”
Click here for a lighter look at the Belgian Grand Prix, courtesy of F1i special contributor Eric Silbermann.
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