• German Grand Prix

Grosjean accepts Lotus strategy

ESPN Staff
July 7, 2013 « 'We want to win and we couldn't' - Raikkonen | Hamilton unhappy with new Pirellis »
Romain Grosjean: "We chose not to put all our eggs in one basket" © Sutton Images
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Romain Grosjean believes Lotus' race strategy made sense at the German Grand Prix, even though it meant he had to concede a position to team-mate Kimi Raikkonen at the end of the race.

Grosjean finished third after moving over for Raikkonen five laps from the end, but had been running second behind Sebastian Vettel for the majority of the race. He was ordered to make his final pit stop early to force Red Bull's hand with its strategy and then told to move over for Raikkonen so the Finn could attack Vettel in the closing stages using soft tyres.

But Grosjean said there were no hard feelings and that he felt he had his chance to attack Vettel when he was running second.

"I think that made sense," he said. "We pitted for the last stint and chose not to put all our eggs in one basket. We didn't know which tyre would be best and obviously Kimi's was the best choice.

"We didn't know beforehand and obviously I had my chance on Sebastian with the same tyres and I don't think we were able to reach the point where he was struggling with his rears and me being able to get the place. I let Kimi by and then I had Fernando [Alonso] behind so I had to fight hard but it was good enough to hold him behind."

It is Grosjean's first points since the Bahrain Grand Prix but he said he had not lost faith in his ability during the results drought in recent races.

"I never lost confidence, even though it didn't look nice on paper compared to Kimi," he added. "Every time something went wrong I thought 'this cannot be happening again', but finally everything went more or less right today. It was fantastic to lead the race in the first stint and the summer and the heat clearly helps our car. I hope summer will be around a little bit longer. It took a long time to come but hopefully it will stay until we head back to Asia where normally the weather is good."

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