Grosjean says he got the most out of his Lotus car after qualifying fourth in Valencia

The Frenchman and his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen are widely tipped as a dark horses for race victory because of the Lotus's performance in hot weather and race conditions.

"Today we got pretty much the most out of the car that we could have," said Grosjean. "P4 is a good position for the start of the race but of course you want always more and to do better.

"Sebastian did an unbelievable lap and today we could not have matched it. We have improved our qualifying performance but there is still room to do better. Tyre degradation will be more important than what we saw at the last race.

"There will be 57 laps in hot conditions on Sunday; we will see what we can do for a good race tomorrow."

Raikkonen too was satisfied with his fifth position though he felt he may have been able to make it on to the second row of the grid.

"It was very close in qualifying, especially in Q2, so it's good to be fifth on the grid," said the Finn. "The car felt good. If we could have improved just a little bit on my last lap then we could have gained a couple of places, but it is an improvement on last time out so I'm very happy with that.

"We found a few good things with the setup this morning to make the car easier to drive. I'm looking forward to tomorrow."