Grosjean: No explanation for French GP Q3 crash

Romain Grosjean was at a loss to explain the reasoning behind his crash during the final segment of French Grand Prix Formula 1 qualifying. 

The Haas driver was on his first flying attempt in Q3 when he lost control of his VF-18 in the first sector and spun into the barriers at low speed. Grosjean’s car suffered front wing and nose damage in the impact and he was unable to reverse his car back out, leaving him 10th on the grid.  

“We don’t know yet what happened yet,” Grosjean explained. “It is the same braking point, same entry speed, exactly the same as the previous lap. There is no explanation as it was the same line so I don’t really know what happened there.

“It came out all of a sudden and then the rear oversteered and then the nose was stuck in the barriers so I couldn’t reverse the car. If I could I think I could have pitted for a new front wing and go for it again.

“We need to understand what happened because as I said driving there was nothing crazy going in there so it just doesn’t make sense that I lost the rear in that way.”

Teammate Kevin Magnussen, who had to abort his first run due to Grosjean’s incident, could only manage the ninth-fastest time behind Sauber’s Charles Leclerc after claiming Kimi Raikkonen had ruined his final effort with some “desperate” driving. 

Grosjean feels Haas had the pace advantage to lock-out the fourth row on the grid and is aiming to finally put an end to his point-less streak of races - stretching back to last year’s Japanese Grand Prix - on home soil.

“I knew we could have secured seventh and eighth and that would have been nicer than where we are right now,” he said. “We had a half-second gap to the Renault which we should have in the race so we will try to use that as much as we can to try to get them and overtake them. Hopefully get some good points.

“I want to be proud of my race when its done, whatever we have done. If its seventh because we have had super speed, or if its ninth because we didn’t have the pace we were expecting then fine. But definitely scoring my first points in France will be nice.”