Lotus F1 Team
Pastor Maldonado was left to lament a lack of grip in his Lotus E23 Hybrid as he was eliminated during the first session of qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix.
Maldonado could muster only the 18th best time and was several tenths of a second away from making it into Q2.
"It was a tough session and we weren’t really able to get the maximum out of the tyres, which is something we’ve struggled with all weekend," he said.
"[A] lack of grip was the main problem out there and it certainly made things slippery for us."
Team-mate Romain Grosjean fared better as he progressed through to Q3 and will start from 10th place.
"We had to work hard to get into Q3, both on the track in the session and working with my engineers beforehand" he explained.
"It’s something of a surprise that it all worked and we made it into Q3, so I’m pretty happy. I was pushing really hard out there today."
