Eric Boullier set for Romain Grosjean talks

Lotus boss Eric Boullier has insisted that the team is not considering to bench Romain Grosjean from the team any time soon, following his eventful and costly series of accidents in Monaco this weekend.

Grosjean was quick throughout the Monaco Grand Prix weekend but crashed heavily at Ste Devote in both FP2 and FP3 before missing out on a place in the top ten in qualifying. Then in the race, Grosjean crashed in to the back of Daniel Ricciardo and will have to take a ten place grid penalty at the Canadian Grand Prix.“Daniel seemed to be really struggling with his rear tyres and they looked to have a lot of graining,” Grosjean explained later. “I’d been following him for almost all of the 61 laps but I was caught out by him braking early in the middle of the circuit and there was nowhere for me to go.

Ricciardo had also been the driver who held him up in the previous day’s qualifying session, but Grosjean insisted that this wasn’t a case of hot-headed retaliation.

“That was Daniel again who I was held up by, but it certainly wasn’t my intention to end my race in the back of his car!” he said.

Boullier said he does need to speak to Grosjean once the team returns to the factory as he believes frustration got the better of his driver this weekend. Asked what advice he needed to give the young driver, Boullier replied: “Keep the pace and make sure he’s back under control like he was at the beginning of the season!”

“I’ll sit down with him and let’s go through the weekend. Obviously it’s always the same story – especially in Monaco – he had the pace. We could see it, so it’s even more frustrating because of that. Thursday’s accident didn’t help but it happened. The rest of the story went worse on Saturday morning.

“Building his frustration was again Ricciardo which didn’t allow him to complete the Q2 like he should have done and ended up 13th on the grid just to finish his frustration. So I think we just need to cool him down and have a proper discussion when we’re back in the factory.”

However, Boullier insisted he felt the weekend was just a one-off and not Grosjean slipping back in to the bad habits of 2012.

“It’s not a worry, he did a great job over the winter and fixed all the problems he had last year. So it’s just some frustration sometimes when he knows he can be fast and he just needs to build himself up saying he is fast and he can deliver some big results. He did it in Bahrain, he was on the way to doing it in Barcelona, so it’s just not losing the momentum and making sure he’s back on track with the real expectation.”

Asked if he had considered substituting reserve driver Davide Valsecchi in to Grosjean’s seat for a race, Boullier replied: “Not yet.”