Grosjean: We still need to keep pushing

Another strong Saturday sees Romain once again at the sharp end of the grid. The Frenchman talks us through qualifying, and the key elements of tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix.

Romain, another top 10 performance in qualifying, how was the session?

It’s good to reach Q3 again and being 4 tenths from pole position is not too bad, but I struggled a bit in turns 1 and 2 where I’m about two tenths from Kimi’s pace. The car feels great around the rest of the lap, so it’s just a case of working on the first sector. Having said that, the grid is very close and I think we can feel confident about challenging for good points in the race.

You only did one run in Q2 and of course it was enough to see you through, but how much of a risk was that decision?

It’s a bit of a gamble making just one run, as your lap can be affected by traffic and other factors. I looked at the situation with the engineers and we saw there was a good window so we went for it. I think it was the right call as we now have an extra set of tyres in our pocket for the race.

It’s been a blisteringly hot day. How did this affect the tyres?

It’s a long race and tyre degradation will be a big factor. We’ve tried to save tyres during qualifying to make sure we have some fresh sets for tomorrow. The weather can quickly change so we’ll have to wait until the first stint to see how far we can push the tyres and what strategy to take from there. I think Vettel is on the prime tyre and most of the others are on the option, so it’ll be interesting to see the comparison.

What would you say is the time difference between the two tyre compounds? Which do you think will be the more useful tomorrow?

It’s very much dependent on the team. Some experience a few tenths difference, others over a second. It depends on the car and how it makes the tyres work. There seems to be a split; some teams look to have saved option tyres, some the prime. It depends on strategy and in these changeable conditions it’s hard to predict. Between myself and Kimi we’ve done long runs on both compounds so I think we the best idea possible of what to expect.

Your consistency in long runs during winter testing was very good. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see that in Australia, but does that give you confidence for the race?

It’s a good sign for sure, but we’ll have to be careful in the long runs here because the main thing to watch is the degradation. Everyone put in a few laps during Free Practice 2 and it seems to be getting better as the weekend goes on, but I don’t think anyone will be able to push 100% through the whole race without needing five or six stops.

Last time out in Melbourne you had an issues at the start. Are you confident you can turn that around and make a few places off the grid this time?

Hopefully! Normally our starts are pretty strong and there’s a lot of track between the start line and the first corner, so if we have no problems this time I’ll be looking to make up as much ground as I can before we get there.

After the incident with Pastor (Maldonado) in Australia, will you be more conservative in your approach to this race?

To be honest I couldn’t have been more conservative in Melbourne, so no! I’m not saying I’m going to be aggressive, I’m just saying there’s no need to be more conservative…

Throughout the pre-season all the talk was of Red Bull and McLaren being a long way in front of the pack. How pleasing is it to be up there mixing it with them?

Of course we’re very happy to be near the front, and with a few upgrades coming up we’ll be looking to get more performance from the car. What’s really pleasing is that we have now shown good pace at two different tracks in different conditions which is a credit to the team. We can be very proud of what we’ve achieved so far, but we still need to keep pushing to stay near the top.

Did you lose anything in the fire last night at the team’s hospitality unit?

I lost a few things, but of course the important thing is that nobody got hurt. Our security guard did a fantastic job to get in and save most of our equipment. He managed to salvage the helmets which was obviously important for Kimi and myself, but we only have one balaclava and two sets of overalls left to use as the others smell so bad you can’t go near anyone!