• Canadian Grand Prix

'Crazy end of race' for Grosjean

Romain Grosjean secured his second podium of the season in Canada © Sutton Images

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• Report:
• Hamilton makes it seven from seven
  

• Race:
• Canadian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Romain Grosjean

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Romain Grosjean described the closing laps of the Canadian Grand Prix as "crazy" as he climbed up to second place.

Having started the race in seventh place, Grosjean pitted on lap 22 to switch to the soft compound tyre. His pace was consistent from that point onwards, however, and he managed to run for 48 laps in the final stint to climb up to second place as Fernando Alonso's tyres went off. Eventually finishing only 2.5 seconds behind race winner Lewis Hamilton, Grosjean described the car Lotus gave him as "fantastic" as it remained competitive until the flag.

"It was a crazy end of race because I was thinking P5, P4, and then suddenly the pace stayed there," Grosjean said. "The team did a fantastic job to give me a car which was good on tyres; we knew with the heat we would be better today so thankfully the sun came and that was good for us. It's fantastic to be on our second podium this season."

Grosjean explained that a one-stop strategy had been planned but that he wasn't sure he would be able to run long enough at the start to make it work.

"Well we thought about going for a one-stop and then see what was going on later on, but the question mark was how far we could go on the option tyre at the beginning. Especially seeing as they had already done two runs from Q2 and Q3 because that's the set on which I'd done my fastest lap time. But then the car felt pretty good.

"When we put on the prime tyre I didn't know how I was doing, I had Nico Rosberg in front of me and then Mark Webber so it was difficult because I was fighting with them, pushing quite hard, but I knew I was trying to go for one stop. Finally when I saw Mark coming in my tyres were quite fresh, and then I didn't realise that I was third - and then I saw Fernando slowing down and then I was second!"

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