Romain Grosjean says this year was even more difficult than the 2012 season, when he was branded F1’s ‘first lap nutcase’ and had to serve a race ban.<\/p>\n
The French driver, who will stay at Lotus next year for a fourth consecutive campaign, scored a mere handful of points in 2014 as the Enstone team struggled with a poor and underpowered car.<\/p>\n
Grosjean told RMC Sport: “This was the most difficult year of my career psychologically.”<\/p>\n
That is despite the 28-year-old having to engage the help of a psychologist after 2012, when he almost lost his seat due to a season of erratic driving and mistakes.<\/p>\n
“In 2012,” he explained, “it was clearly about me and some stupid things I did.\u00a0 But this year I did a very good performance but it was not visible because of the car.<\/p>\n
“This was also the first year that I was the team leader, so I was trying to understand and point everyone in the right direction and it took a lot of energy,” said Grosjean.<\/p>\n
Towards the end of the season, Grosjean declared that he could escape from his Lotus contract and switch to a top team, but he instead re-signed for Lotus.<\/p>\n
“In sports,” he explained, “it is always easier to support someone who is successful than someone who is in a difficult moment.<\/p>\n
“But I think the numbers, compared to my teammate (Pastor Maldonado), speak for me.<\/p>\n
“When you’re not on the podium, it is easy for people to ask questions, but we live in a sport that is hugely dependent on the car,” Grosjean said.<\/p>\n
He is therefore hoping Lotus can produce a better one for 2015.<\/p>\n
“It’s always difficult to know before winter testing,” he said.\u00a0 “This year, we thought we had a very good car because the aerodynamic numbers were excellent.<\/p>\n
“By the third lap on the track, we knew it was not a good car.<\/p>\n
“We already know that the Mercedes engine is more advanced, efficient and easier to use than the Renault, so that will help us to have a better car too.<\/p>\n
“I hope very much to drink champagne on the podium again next year, but 2015 will be a good year anyway as my second child will arrive in mid-May,” Grosjean revealed.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romain Grosjean says this year was even more difficult than the 2012 season, when he was branded F1’s ‘first lap nutcase’ and had to serve a race ban. The French driver, who will stay at Lotus next year for a fourth consecutive campaign, scored a mere handful of points in 2014 as the Enstone team …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25407,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,306,295],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26407"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26407"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26407\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26408,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26407\/revisions\/26408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}