Romain Grosjean believes Haas was capable of chasing a top-10 position on the grid for the Chinese Grand Prix, had it not been for "hard luck," amid his own spin and Antonio Giovinazzi's crash.
The Haas driver was on a quick lap before he spun exiting the final corner, forcing him to run a second time. However, that lap was also compromised, for Giovinazzi crashed at the same spot, leaving Grosjean down in 17th place on the grid.
Stewards later deemed that Grosjean, along with Renault's Jolyon Palmer, had not sufficiently slowed for Giovinazzi's crash, demoting him to 19th position.
"The first lap was looking good in qualifying, then I spun on the last corner for some unexpected reason," commented the Frenchman. "We need to look if I went a bit too hard on throttle on the exit.
"The second lap was actually really good. I was aiming for P10, but Giovinazzi crashed at the last corner and I couldn’t complete my lap. It’s just hard luck."
Grosjean reckons the car was capable of reaching Q3, following some set-up changes during the morning after he felt uncomfortable in FP3.
"I wasn’t so happy with the car this morning in FP3. We struggled a little bit, but we made some gains with changes over lunch. As I said, the car was going to be P10, so we weren’t far off chasing Q3. It was looking all good, but then I couldn’t do the lap.
"Tomorrow’s going to be a long race. We know the tyre degradation will be a huge thing here in the rain, and it should rain. It’s a white piece of paper to start."
Meanwhile team-mate Kevin Magnussen was 12th quickest and content with his lap, although unhappy to have missed out on a shot at Q3 by less than a tenth.
"I’m fairly happy. We were about half-a-tenth from Q3 and that’s the best qualifying I’ve had for a while," he said. "I can’t be unhappy with that. It’s obviously a little bit annoying not to get through when the margin is so small, but the lap wasn’t bad, so it is what it is.
"I think the car is competitive, especially in race conditions. It’s a good car. If it’s raining, we have no idea how it’s going to be. We’ll see how it goes."
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