Monaco GP: Lotus struggling for tyre temperature

After its strong form at Barcelona a fortnight ago, Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado had a more difficult time on the streets of Monte Carlo on Thursday.

Both drivers believed that the pace of the E22 was being hampered by its tyres not being in the right working range for its car.

Grosjean said: "This morning clearly these tyres were too hard for everyone.

"We know that when we have a hot track it's a good advantage for us, but when it's smooth and the tyres are too hard, we can't get the grip.

"That was one of our problems, and the rear of the car is not very predictable, which makes it a bit tricky. Hopefully Saturday will be better in terms of weather and car balance as well."

Maldonado added: "We were struggling a little bit with the tyre temperatures.

"It is a big margin here when you have the tyre temperatures and when you don't. If we can work on this and be close to the optimum temperatures, we will be close to the others."

But even if Saturday's crucial qualifying session is more suitable for its car, Grosjean is unsure if Lotus will have the pace to fight for a top-five finish like it did in Spain.

"I don't know, maybe it will be a bit more difficult here," he said. "At a normal track, if the rear end is a little bit tricky there is gravel or space to go wide.

"On Saturday here we'll just have to push hard, trust the rear end and go for it.

"It would be nice to be in the top 10. At the minute we are not looking very close to it, but it may come."