• Malaysian Grand Prix - FP2

Mystery problem slowing Grosjean

Romain Grosjean: "I think we still have funny things with the car" © Sutton Images

Enlarge

Related Links

• Race:
• Malaysian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Romain Grosjean

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Romain Grosjean says he is still struggling with an unknown problem with his Lotus at this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix.

His team-mate Kimi Raikkonen won the opening grand prix in Australia, while Grosjean struggled to tenth and made an extra pit stop over the race distance. He said a mystery problem was still causing his balance to shift during stints this weekend, not only affecting his pace but also his tyre degradation.

"I think we still have funny things with the car that are the same as we had in Melbourne and we don't understand it," he said. "The set-up changes when you are not expecting it to change. Suddenly it can bring you different things and it doesn't make the car easy to drive.

"It's the key to tyre wear, because if you lose downforce or the balance changes then you destroy the tyres. If you start with an oversteer car it's okay but it won't go very far in the race."

Asked if it was worrying ahead of the race weekend, he said: "It is a little bit, but I know the team are going to work hard and if they can change a few pieces to make it consistent and reliable to what we think it is going to do then we will do it for tomorrow. I keep my fingers crossed to solve the issue, but at the moment there is not really an idea of what is causing it."

Grosjean is not running a new exhaust system that is present on Raikkonen's car, but he is sure that is not the issue. He also doubts there is damage to his chassis.

"I don't think so because it has only run in Jerez, Melbourne and here so it hasn't got any damage. It's too early to say anything but from what we see from P1 to P2 without changing much the car changed. We don't know what's going on."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.