Romain Grosjean believed that his qualifying result for the Monaco Grand Prix compromised by the Mercedes team, with the Frenchman insisting he had the pace to challenge for a top ten start.
Grosjean found himself stuck behind a slower moving Mercedes on both of his out laps in Monaco, which did not enable the Haas F1 Team driver to get the necessary heat into his tyres that the Frenchman believes cost him the opportunity to better his fifteenth place on the grid.
Grosjean believes the car is better than the fifteenth place indicates, and says that had he made it through to the final top ten shootout, it would have been a great achievement for the team making their Monaco Grand Prix debut.
“We had the speed to go into Q3,” said Grosjean. “We showed that in Q1. Just two times there was traffic on my out laps in Q2.
“We went out behind the Mercedes and they were going slow and that’s what got me. If the tires had been ready for the first timed lap, everything would have been fine, but they’re really had to warm up.
“Everyone’s doing different things, of course. Mercedes has more downforce than others, so they were going slower when I needed faster out laps. It was tricky. Traffic is part of the game, but twice we went in exactly the same group of cars, and that didn’t help us.
“I think we could have made it to Q3 and that would have been a great achievement. The positives are that the car feels better, but the negative is that we are P15.”
