• Spanish Grand Prix - Qualifying

Morning problem slightly slows Grosjean

Romain Grosjean was on his out-lap in FP3 when he had to stop his car © Sutton Images

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• Report:
• Maldonado inherits Spanish pole
  

• Race:
• Spanish Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Romain Grosjean

• Teams:
• Lotus F1

Romain Grosjean felt that he "could have been a little bit quicker" in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix if he hadn't lost out on running in FP3.

While fourth place on the grid is a strong performance, Grosjean has Pastor Maldonado and Fernando Alonso between himself and Lewis Hamilton and is 0.7s slower than the McLaren. A fuel pressure problem meant that he didn't even complete two laps during the final practice session, and Grosjean praised Lotus' recovery but admitted he could have gone slightly quicker in qualifying.

"It was a good performance from the team, especially as I didn't run in FP3 because of a fuel pressure problem," Grosjean said. "For the set-up we went from what we'd found out yesterday and it worked pretty well. Everyone did a good job to get the car ready for qualifying after the problems of the morning. We can be happy with what we have achieved - of course you always want more but this is the result for today. I think that I could have been a little bit quicker, not too much more. Tomorrow is going to be long; our race pace did not look too bad but, of course, we'll have to manage tyre degradation."

Grosjean admitted that he was surprised by the positions of some of the cars on the grid, but said that he wouldn't be entertaining any ideas of victory until he had a feel for the race.

"I have to say that Williams is a bit of a surprise in qualifying with Maldonado. Ferrari we knew had been working hard, Fernando is at home and he's on fire and Sebastian is quite strange in the Red Bull I have to say. We will see tomorrow if it's the case in the race or not, but we're trying to be constant, trying to look at our work and trying to get the car as good as we can.

"We'll see after the start and how the car is after the first few laps. If I have the same feeling that I had at the beginning of the race in Bahrain then I'll think about [victory]."

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