Grosjean loves braking hard and late in Bahrain

Romain Grosjean boasts a positive track record at Bahrain and is bullish on keeping the good stats coming, even after a frustrating Chinese weekend.

The Frenchman endured a difficult race in the mid-field in Shanghai, finishing just outside of the points in eleventh place.

Grosjean has scored points in four of his five career F1 starts at Bahrain. His best finish is third, earned twice in back-to-back seasons in 2012 and 2013.

"I love the track in Bahrain," admits the Haas driver.

"On paper, it doesn’t look like the most exciting one, but driving it is pretty good fun. Big braking – I brake late. I love braking hard and late.

"It probably explains why my qualifying sessions in 2012 and 2013, I could have done better. The car was pretty good on tyres in the race.

"It’s hard on tyres as well, but I was good with that, probably another thing that helped. I love racing in Bahrain."

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Speaking of tyres, teams will be supplied with the same compound mix as China - medium, soft and supersoft.

But Grosjean doesn't believe the choice provides any predictability because of the very different environments which separate Bahrain from Shanghai.

"It doesn’t mean a lot that we’ve got the same tires," he says.

"Conditions are going to be very different. Bahrain is a very aggressive track with a high temperature. China is a very smooth track with low temperature.

"Shanghai is front limited, Bahrain is rear limited. They’re two very different circuits.

"If you look at the first four races of the calendar, if we do well out of those four and manage to get a good consistency, we can then be very hopeful for the rest of the year."

The wider tyres this year from Pirelli have led to cars enjoying a rather delicate balance and narrow spectrum of grip, enhancing the art of set-up for drivers and engineers.

"Finding the balance is never easy," insists Grosjean.

"It’s about finding the setup that fits you and finding what is the limit of the car.

"It’s true that now we have more downforce, whenever the car goes sideways we lose all downforce, and the percentage of loss is bigger than it was before.

"That’s probably why we see cars not possible to recover. Driving to the limit is what we’re here for and what we love."

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