• European Grand Prix

Lotus drivers target qualifying improvement

Grosjean enjoyed a fine run in Canada © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• European Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Romain Grosjean
• |
• Kimi Räikkönen

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Romain Grosjean is confident that his Lotus team will not have to wait too long before taking the chequered flag for their first race win of the season.

Grosjean was close to securing victory in Montreal but had to settle for second place behind Lewis Hamilton. And the Frenchman is confident he can go one better and become the eighth different winner in as many races if he can improve his qualifying form.

"The gap to the win is not that big," said Grosjean. "We need to qualify better, that is not our strength this season but we are working on it. I think Friday and Saturday were quite difficult for us in Canada but we have been learning a lot about the car so it's good that we now have that in our pocket for the next races.

"We have to go into every weekend aiming for a win; approaching a race in any other way is like putting yourself on the back foot from the start. I'm mainly hoping for an improvement in qualifying, a good start and then we'll see what happens from there. It's great to be fighting at the front and that's always what we want to do, but we're in a tight battle this season so of course the most important thing is to score some good points again for the team. If we have a strong weekend from the start then I think we are capable of fighting for a podium or even a win. We'll see after qualifying where we are; hopefully we can get another good result!"

Team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who finished second in Bahrain and third in Spain, is also hoping that an improved qualifying performance can lead to that elusive win.

"Qualifying is going to be very, very important again here. Obviously, there will be an advantage to starting on the clean side of the track as the streets are only used as a circuit once each year," said Raikkonen. "It's not an easy place to overtake and we'll have to see how much help the DRS will be.

"Valencia is all about being very consistent. It's so easy to lose time with small mistakes. Valencia is all about being very consistent. It's so easy to lose time with small mistakes."

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