The Lotus F1 Team continued their disappointing run of non-points finishes at Hockenheim, but came closer than they have in recent races with Pastor Maldonado finishing twelfth. Unfortunately team-mate Romain Grosjean was forced out of the race with a mechanical issue while in the hunt for the first points for the team since the Monaco Grand Prix in May.
Maldonado had one of his strongest races of 2014, and was on course for a points finish before his tyre degradation became too much and he slipped behind the Force India of Sergio Perez and the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen to finish twelfth.
“It was a tough race from the beginning; the incident in turn one was quite tricky to avoid but then the pace looked consistent,” said Maldonado. “I did my best to manage the tyre degradation, which was quite high, and we were able to do only two stops.
“Today’s lower temperature helped us there as well. The initial plan included three stops but we had a competitive first stint so we went for plan B which worked well for us today.”
Team-mate Grosjean was also have a good race before a cooling issue forced him to stop at the side of the track. The Frenchman felt it was possible to score points but ultimately left Germany disappointed once more.
“Our overall pace was quite good today,” said Grosjean. “I suffered from a loss of power due to an issue with our cooling system so I was asked to switch off the car. It’s such a shame as we were on a different strategy from our rivals so we looked like we could be on course for scoring points.”
Although obviously disappointed about failing to score points for a fourth consecutive race in Germany, Deputy Team Principal Federico Gastaldi praised the spirit of the whole team who are still showing a never-give-up attitude in what is turning out to be a very difficult season.
“There was great evidence of the team’s spirit over the whole weekend in Hockenheim,” said Gastaldi. “We had good race strategies and looked to be managing the tyres well with the pit stop crew making some fantastically fast tyre changes during the course of the race.”
