Assessment of the French: Grosjean saves the day

Romain Grosjean: 6th

The position is nice, but a disappointment remains: the inability to beat his teammate, Kévin Magnussen, who finished fifth after Q3. Yet, the former Lotus driver was on a good trajectory, securing fourth place right from Q1. This was Haas’s best performance in all qualifying sessions in its history! The rest was satisfactory, but from Q2 onward, Magnussen took the lead. Beaten by two-tenths, Grosjean was then defeated by three-tenths in Q3. Here’s the start of an explanation with the man himself.

« It was a pretty good session. I just need to see what happened in my last run. I went wide in the first corner. I need to analyze this mistake. As a result, I couldn’t improve my time on the second run. »

Fortunately, Romain Grosjean was able to keep his sixth place, just sixteen thousandths ahead of Nico Hülkenberg. This is the best overall result for the American team since its arrival in Formula 1!

« It was still a good session. I am really happy for the team. We were good on a track where we don’t necessarily think we can be competitive. It’s very encouraging! »

There remains only to stay wise tomorrow, avoiding pitfalls, in order to repeat the feat of the Austrian Grand Prix, fourth after the triple retirement of the Mercedes drivers and Ricciardo.

« There is some uncertainty with the weather, but I think we will manage with cool weather », estimates Romain Grosjean. Before concluding: « we are in a good position for tomorrow! »

Great quali today, starting P6 for the #GermanGP 👍🇩🇪🏁
Bonne qualification aujourd’hui, 6eme sur la grille de départ demain 🤘🇩🇪👍#r8g @HaasF1Team pic.twitter.com/8cpAej83uh

— Romain Grosjean (@RGrosjean) 21 juillet 2018

Esteban Ocon: 16th

Another reaction, different atmosphere for the Force India driver, caught at the end of Q1 by a mere twelve thousandths! The Evreux native records his worst qualifying result of the season, having never been eliminated in Q1 until now. He shared his thoughts with Canal+ journalists. For him, his elimination is due to a lack of track time since the start of the weekend, as he had given up his seat to Nicholas Latifi for FP1.

« I am obviously disappointed. The car had more potential than that, we saw it with Sergio (ed: tenth). I didn’t do FP1, and I only ran with two sets of tires in FP2. And it rained in FP3… I wasn’t prepared enough and I came in a bit blind. »

From his 16th place, he’ll need to hope for a race full of twists and turns to get into the points. Esteban Ocon remains confident nonetheless.

« It will be different tomorrow. There will be overtaking opportunities. The goal will of course be to climb up. The car will be better tuned. »

A car in P10, one in P16 after a busy Saturday – now the focus turns to tomorrow’s showdown in Hockenheim.

Qualifying report: https://t.co/sUhlKLdVXz #GermanGP pic.twitter.com/EOPetsoTTb

— Sahara Force India (@ForceIndiaF1) 21 juillet 2018

Pierre Gasly: 17th

He had announced it. The weekend is indeed difficult for the young tricolor aboard his Toro Rosso. Here is his fifth elimination in Q1 this season: he misses Q2 by forty-thousandths of a second.

“It’s complicated for us at the moment,” the Toro Rosso driver admitted in the interview zone. “We’ve been stagnating over the past weekends. However, I managed to do a good last lap. Everything was there, but we’re lacking performance.”

Tomorrow, Pierre Gasly will try to get revenge for Silverstone, after losing his point for tenth place due to a penalty, owing to a contentious overtake against Pérez. He will obviously be on the offensive, hoping for rain!

« We’ll have to fight, as always. We’re counting on twists and incidents. I’m not going to give up. We’ll keep working to get closer to the middle of the grid. I would prefer it to rain, that would shuffle the deck! »

Not the easiest qualifying day leaves us with plenty of work for tomorrow's race. Find Pierre's full quote here:

📱 https://t.co/dQ4wQt2ijg pic.twitter.com/RKQuSfde9E

— Toro Rosso (@ToroRosso) 21 juillet 2018