Disappointing day for Grosjean as Lotus get so near to the points

(Steven Tee for The Lotus F1 Team)

The Lotus F1 Team had a disappointing Hungarian Grand Prix after Romain Grosjean who started the race from 14th place failed to finish the race after an accident on lap 10 of the 70 lap race. Despite the crash, Grosjean and Lotus have certainly made progress.

Pastor Maldonado was left disappointed after the Venezuelan finished the race in 13th place narrowly missing out on his first points of the season. Maldonado drove extremely well in Grand Prix having started the race in 20th place. 

The Enstone based outfit head into the Summer break in 8th place in the Constructors championship on eight points and will be hoping for an improved second half of the season. At the midway point in the 2013 season the team had recorded a victory with Kimi Raikkonen in Australia along with 7 podium finishes. 

The Lotus F1 Team's technical director Nick Chester has stated that the team are currently well advanced in the design phase of their 2015 car and are still bringing developments to this years E22 machine. Grosjean has now suffered five retirements so far this season while Pastor Maldonado has recorded three retirements and a Did Not Start.

'The conditions on the circuit this afternoon were very tricky and we couldn’t get the best out of the tyres, We made the right call to move to slicks when the safety car came out – like most of the grid did – but I made a mistake when I was trying to keep the tyres warm. Unfortunately, I touched the white line and spun and that was it. “I feel very sorry for everyone in the team who are giving everything they can to give me the best car possible. We didn’t finish the race today which is very disappointing.'

Romain Grosjean commented by saying:

'It was a tough race for us, It was a struggle to find enough grip and the track surface was very slippery. “We didn’t always have full power, which certainly added to the challenge in what was already a pretty difficult race with the changeable conditions. We weren’t able to close in on the cars ahead along the straight which made it hard to overtake, and there aren’t many places to overtake around here.” 

The Lotus F1 Team have decided that they will head back to Enstone next week before heading off on their two week holiday at the end of the week.

© Ben Johnston 2014