Lotus driver Romain Grosjean says various problems forced him to retire from the Singapore Grand Prix at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Grosjean had been running in the top ten but excessive tyre wear and a gearbox issue meant he had to retire from the race.
After a tough opening lap, the Frenchman tried to make his way up the field, but despite an aggressive strategy, he was overtaken by several cars and ended up retiring – a decision made by the team to avoid more damage on the gearbox.
“I lost a lot of places on the first lap, there was quite a lot of sliding going on and, as we knew this wouldn’t be a great track for us – like Hungary and Monaco – we knew it would be difficult.”
“We had an aggressive strategy planned for today, which looked good since we were as high as P8 at one point but the first virtual safety car cost us dearly.”
“There was nothing left in the tyres towards the end of the race and as soon as we were out of the points, we chose to retire the car as we had some concerns with the gearbox and didn’t want to risk a penalty in Japan.”
