(© Ben Johnston 2014)
Lotus F1 Team boss and co owner Gerard Lopez has confirmed that the Enstone outfit will work with their driver Pastor Maldonado to eradicate the mistakes that the Venezuelan has made since joining the team at the start of the season. Maldonado has struggled since joining the Lotus team at the start of the season. He failed to finish the opening two Grand Prix of the season in Australia and Malaysia.
Speaking to Sky Sports in the build up to this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix Lopez said:
'It's a case of working with him [Pastor] to make sure he is comfortable, He had an easy weekend (in Spain) until qualifying, and he would easily have been in Q3. When I say 'easy', he pushed but didn't really have to push until he probably decided he had to push more in qualifying when it probably wasn't required.
The Enstone team went through a difficult period with Romain Grosjean when the Frenchman joined the team to partner Kimi Raikkonen in 2012 which culminated in him receiving a one race ban after causing a massive accident at the Belgian Grand Prix.
However last season Grosjean was more then capable of competing and on occasion beating team mate Kimi Raikkonen and even led the Japanese Grand Prix and Lopez is confident that the team can help Maldonado to turn his season around.
Maldonado heads to this weekend's Monaco Grand Prix having never finished the race on the streets of the Principality but the team are confident that Maldonado will be able to turn this season around.
Lopez also confirmed that the team were approached by other team's last season about Grosjean's availability for this season following his strong performance's last season. Following Grosjean's performance last time out at the Barcelona Circuit de Catalunya Lopez confirmed that the team had been approached once again about Grosjean.
Lopez is confident however that Grosjean will remain at the Enstone team long term. Lopez concluded by saying:
'I'm not saying Romain is going, but what I am saying is that here is a driver who was criticised, and now suddenly people are saying he is a driver who could pretty much drive for any team.'
©Ben Johnston 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment