Romain Grosjean will start tomorrow’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix from seventh place on the grid after pulling off one of his all-time best qualifying laps at Yas Marina Circuit.
The French driver’s time of 1:36.192s was enough to make him the best of the rest after the front three rows of the grid were locked out by the familiar contenders from Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.
“It was a good qualifying,” the Haas driver beamed after the end of the session. “My first run in Q3 was one of the best laps of my career.
“I crossed the line and knew there was not much more on track. It was good. I was happy.”
It’s certainly much better than the team managed in Brazil, where a puzzling slump in form saw him start and finish well outside the points at Interlagos.
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“It was great to be in Q3 once again, adding to our tally for the year and especially at a track where we were not sure we’d be competitive.
“Tomorrow’s going to be a long race. It’s going to be interesting to see what we can do on the hypersofts, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Grosjean was also buoyed by confirmation that he wouldn’t face any sanction for a clash with Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly in final practice earlier on Saturday.
The pair made contact at turn 17. Grosjean had been on a slow lap but held the racing line, apparently unaware that Gasly was closing fast on a flier.
Grosjean subsequently visited the Toro Rosso garage to talk the incident over with his compatriot, and the meeting ended amicably – unlike the Verstappen/Ocon altercation in Brazil!
They subsequently visited the race steward to talk things over, but no further action was deemed necessary. Its’ a relief for Grosjean, who has amassed a number of reprimands and penalty points over the season and didn’t need any more from the final event of the year.
While things were going well for Grosjean, it was a less happy scene on the other wide of the Haas garage after team mate Kevin Magnussen failed to make it beyond Q2.
“I didn’t quite have the pace today for some reason,” admitted the Dane. “I was just a little bit behind. The car was obviously good for Romain. He seems to be going well this weekend.
“Who knows, though, maybe it’s an advantage tomorrow to not start in the top ten. Hopefully, it is. [But] I would have liked to have been a bit further up, somewhere around 11th.
“If you can’t get in front of the midfield in seventh or around there, it’s possibly better to be 11th. I’m 13th and it’s still not over from there, that’s for sure. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”
“We had one in and one out for final qualifying,” summarised Haas team principal Guenther Steiner. “We were hoping to have both cars up into Q3 today. The cars were obviously fast.
“Kevin had an issue with his car,” he revealed. “It was losing water pressure and it damaged the floor.
“Romain did a fantastic job on his lap. I don’t think there was a lot more in it. Qualifying seventh for the last race of the year is good for the whole team.
“The car is fast, so I think Kevin can make some ground up tomorrow. Hopefully, we can get both cars in the points.”
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