Romain Grosjean has been frustrated with his Hockenheimring weekend so far after the Frenchman suffered gearbox issues during final practice that meant a grid penalty when it was changed before qualifying.
The Haas F1 Team driver could only qualify fifteenth on the grid for the German Grand Prix, ending three-tenths of a second behind team-mate Esteban Gutierrez in eleventh, but Grosjean will drop five places further down the grid as a result of his penalty.
Grosjean praised his team to enable him to get out on track for qualifying having made the gearbox change, but felt the grip levels were not as they should have been, meaning he could not better P15.
“It’s not been a good weekend so far,” said Grosjean. “We’ve had our problems, and things didn’t really go our way in qualifying either.
“The guys in the garage did an amazing job to get the car back together for qualifying after the gearbox issue this morning. I was feeling more comfortable in the car and I felt we had a good chance.
“Sadly, the last run in Q2 just didn’t work. I don’t know what happened. There was no grip. It’s tricky to find the right balance. We’ve got good top speed in the car and, hopefully, it behaves so I can have a good race.”
