Grosjean: Lotus at Monza is 'worst car'

Romain Grosjean is pulling no punches at Monza as he assesses the performance of his Lotus car.

Reportedly eyeing the exit at the struggling Enstone team, the Frenchman's season looks to have hit rock bottom in Italy as he led only the Caterhams in practice.

"We thought Marussia would possibly be faster than us here," Grosjean is quoted by Germany's Auto Motor und Sport and France's Auto Hebdo.

"Their Ferrari engine has made progress. It will be difficult for us to get into Q2.

"We are behind in our development programme," he added. "Work to improve the cooling of the car cost us time and money and performance has suffered."

And Brazil's Globo quotes Grosjean as saying: "Without a doubt, this Lotus at Monza is the worst car I've ever seen in my life.

"We have problems with the consistency of the aerodynamics, and it's something we can't 100 per cent solve this year."

Grosjean also saved some criticism for F1's official tyre supplier Pirelli, as he said the tyres "were too hard last year and they still are this year".

Force India's Nico Hulkenberg agrees: "The tyres are like concrete."

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Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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