Pastor Maldonado says he expects Lotus to be more competitive in the race in Brazil after a disappointing qualifying outing for the Enstone-based team.
Maldonado failed to progress into Q2 while teammate Romain Grosjean spun on his flying lap in Q2, meaning the duo will line-up 14th and 15th, benefitting from Daniel Ricciardo’s 10-place grid penalty.
“It was a tough session. We expected to be more competitive this afternoon but, unfortunately, we weren’t. We had been trying a number of different set-ups with the car to improve the feeling especially the rear of the car. Hopefully, we will have better pace to have a solid race and be more competitive tomorrow.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director at Lotus, agreed that it was a disappointing qualifying session for the team after the strong pace shown in Saturday practice.
“We looked strong this morning; we didn’t this afternoon. Very disappointing. Both drivers were happy with their cars this morning and set times in the top ten. Pastor was not able to extract the required speed to get into Q2, then Romain had two messy laps when he was in that second session.”
