Romain Grosjean achieved a career-best Formula 1 qualifying result in Budapest on Saturday, doing enough for second on the grid alongside Lewis Hamilton. The Franco-Swiss, reigning GP2 Champion, has previously started third in both the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and the Spanish race at Barcelona.
The result also marks Enstone-based Lotus’ first front row start of 2012. The previous one was Robert Kubica’s second place in Monaco in 2010.
“The German Grand Prix was a bit of a disaster, so we worked hard in practice here to understand what had gone wrong,” Grosjean comments. “It got better in final practice and we found a lot more speed, so starting from the front row is special I think this is a result of lots of things just coming together, but it is a bit of a surprise after the recent struggles.”
He injected more optimism into his comments by reiterating that the E20 chassis tends to perform better with high fuel loads, as opposed to the low fuel runs of this afternoon.
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:20.953 | 18 |
| 2. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 01:21.366 | 26 |
| 3. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:21.416 | 18 |
| 4. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:21.583 | 22 |
| 5. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | 01:21.730 | 22 |
| 6. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:21.844 | 19 |
| 7. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:21.900 | 19 |
| 8. | P. Maldonado | Williams | 01:21.939 | 22 |
| 9. | B. Senna | Williams | 01:22.343 | 24 |
| 10. | N. Hulkenberg | Force India | 01:22.847 | 19 |
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| Romain Grosjean | |||
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| More Romain Grosjean photos | |||
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