Romain Grosjean labels the Lotus E23’s consistency as “very positive” and expects his car to perform better at Sakhir than during last weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix where the Frenchman secured his first points in 2015.
Having qualified eighth at Shanghai, the nine-time podium finisher then drove a steady race to claim seventh at the flagfall and score for the first time since Monaco last year.
Grosjean and Lotus have been regular top-ten contenders since the season kicked off in Melbourne a month ago, as highlighted by the Frenchman’s perfect Q3 record on Saturdays. However, these performances had not translated into strong showings on race days before China.
Indeed, the 28-year-old could only complete one lap in Australia before retiring with a power loss, while an eventful race in Malaysia left him on the fringes of the points-paying positions.
Having finally ended his barren spell, Grosjean takes even more satisfaction from being able to consistently challenge near the front, especially after the Enstone-based team experienced such a torrid campaign last year.
“We’ve been to different tracks in Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur and China, all with different limitations and the behaviour of the car is always the same so that’s very positive in a way we can focus on those areas,” said the Frenchman.
“Hopefully we’ll have a few bits and pieces (in Bahrain) and then of course a bigger one for Barcelona and until you test it on track you don’t know but from the wind tunnel and everything it should be going in the right direction.”
After saying that Lotus was on par with Red Bull as the fourth quickest teams at the moment, Grosjean feels reeling in third-placed Williams might be just one development away.
“You never know,” he replied when asked whether his team could catch up the Grove-based outfit by mid-season.
“(Williams) are probably 0.5s quicker than we are right now, which seems to be a lot and not much at the same time.
“Sometimes it just takes one update going in the right direction to take it. That’s probably something we’ll know by Barcelona if we’ve been in a good direction or not.”
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