It was another weekend of disappointment for the Lotus F1 Team, as they left Silverstone having again failed to score a point for the seventh time in nine races. Romain Grosjean finished the British Grand Prix in twelfth, but Pastor Maldonado was classified down in seventeenth after an exhaust issue saw him retire three laps from the end.
Grosjean finished twelfth after having a slow getaway from the initial grid, but made a few places back up by the end of the lap, but the pace of his car was not sufficient to enable him to score points.
“It was a difficult first start to the race for me,” said Grosjean. “I had a switch problem which meant limited power, but despite that we had a good first lap. I avoided the incident with Kimi, but my visor did get damaged by some debris. The restart went pretty well for me and the car felt alright.
“Towards the end of the race, on medium tyres, our pace was much better. We came close to the points but we’d started the race from too far down the grid. I understood quite a lot from the car today which should assist us in making progress.”
Team-mate Maldonado had a more lively race, first tangling with the Sauber of Esteban Gutierrez that saw the Venezuelan jump into the air at Club, and secondly ending his race early with an exhaust problem. He was able to come through the incident with the Sauber driver relatively unscathed in what was an almost carbon copy of what happen in Bahrain but the other way around. In Bahrain it was Gutierrez who was flipped over by Maldonado.
“My first start felt good but after the restart we struggled for power so I wasn’t able to fight with the cars around me,” said Maldonado. “I still pushed as best I could but making progress was difficult. There was contact from Esteban Gutierrez, the result of which I’m told looked spectacular, but in the car it was over very quickly and we kept on racing.
“We’re not sure if this added to the cause of my retirement, certainly the rear wing was moving about more than normal so we don’t know yet what other damage there was. Now I look forward to testing here on Tuesday.”
Deputy Team Principal Federico Gastaldi was disappointed not to come away from Silverstone without adding to the teams’ tally of points, but laid no blame on either driver.
“Once more the team demonstrated great teamwork over a challenging weekend,” said Gastaldi. “Unfortunately we weren’t able to take advantage of what looks to be much more competitive damp weather performance as the weather was much better today. It was an eventful race and we’re thankful no-one was hurt in the incident at the start.
“Our performance was short of where we want it to be, but both drivers gave their all. As our local race, it was fantastic to see so many people from Enstone here and we thank them all for their on-going hard work.”
