Singapore GP: Romain Grosjean says he has no regrets about wild lap in Q3

The Frenchman had looked set for a place near the front after showing strongly in Q1 and Q2, but a slide at Turn 9 in Q3 and a big lock-up into the chicane cost him valuable time.

But despite not showing the full potential of the Lotus on what has been a difficult weekend for the Enstone team, Grosjean felt that he did the right thing in attacking so hard on that final lap.

"If you look at the Q2 laptime, the pace was good for third or fourth - and we were just one second from the top," explained the Frenchman.

"And you know in one second you can have a lot of cars, so we had to try something in Q3. The lap was okay until Turn 8 but then in Turn 9 I had a big wheel spin for some reason.

"We lacked some grip in the last part of qualifying, and everyone managed to improve but we didn't. Anyway - 47.6, 47.5 in Q2, so 47.4 in Q3 does not change much."

Lotus reverted to some aerodynamic specifications that had been so successful at Budapest on Saturday in a bid to try and understand why its recent pace had appeared to drop off in recent races.

Grosjean believes that moved had helped the team, which should assist its planning for the next race in Japan.

"It is not a night and day difference, but it was the safest option when you don't know," he said about the change.

"I don't think we have seen as much difference as we wanted, but hopefully we understood a bit more and for Suzuka we can put the right pieces on."