Haas F1 Team‘s Romain Grosjean has had a solid qualifying for the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos this weekend, starting ninth on the grid, with team-mate Kevin Magnussen down in eleventh.
Both drivers have been pushed up one place on the grid, due to penalties incurred by Australian Daniel Ricciardo due to a turbocharger change.
“We had wanted to be best-of-the-rest today, but we didn’t quite get the conditions as favourable as we would’ve wanted,” said the Frenchman.
Grosjean said their qualifying efforts did not go completely as they had hoped due to a number of factors, including the engine stalling, and experiencing understeer during his Qualifying 3 run.
“I have to say, my car in Q2 felt amazing. I went for my first timed lap and into Turn 3 the kill engine switch went on, so I lost power and had to turn the car on again.”
He added: “I was confident heading into Q3, but then we picked up understeer for some reason. I didn’t quite get the same lap times, so we need to analyse that.”
Putting his misfortunes from qualifying aside, Grosjean remains optimistic for the race.
“With those conditions, it’s very easy to get a bit of a difference and and not have the same balance.
“I think we should be alright tomorrow. Wet or dry, there’s nothing we can do about it. Let’s see what tomorrow brings.”
