Or was he just showing his hand a little too early in practice?
This is a track where he's been on par with Alonso.
I'm probably getting ahead of myself, but it's been a long wait since his last win, the start of the season is going to be his best chance to add to his win tally.
Zitat Chinese GP: Grosjean hit by mystery car issue again By Edd Straw Friday, April 12th 2013, 10:13 GMT
Romain Grosjean claims to have been hit with a recurrence of the mystery car problem which held him back during the Australian and Malaysian Grand Prix weekends.
The Lotus driver battled the problem of a lack of the expected downforce during the race in Australia, Friday practice in Malaysia and again today.
Grosjean first hit the problem during Friday morning practice when running the new exhaust design used by team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in Malaysia and, despite reverting to the previous specification in the afternoon, continued to struggle.
This is despite the problem initially appearing to be solved ahead of Saturday practice in Malaysia.
"It's the third Friday of the season and the third time the same story," said Grosjean.
"We went to the updates this morning and it was terrible then we went back to the last race specification and it was worse - from bad to very bad.
"All we can see is a lack of performance in downforce.
"We need to see now what we can understand. We cannot run the same set-up as Kimi because it doesn't work."
Previously, Grosjean did not believe that the problem could be related to the monocoque itself.
But as the team has now changed many parts, he believes that a switch of chassis is possible in the future.
Lotus does have a spare chassis in China, so if a problem was found it is possible the team could rebuild his car around that - although currently this is not something it plans to do.
"Maybe, we will see," he said when asked if the chassis might be at the root of the problem.
"We need to see now deeply the detail and that [a change of chassis] will be an option."
They post a video from last year. Its funny, Kimi is talking and dancing to the same time. I wish, I would ever see him like this in an interview. arts" title="hearts" />
They post a video from last year. Its funny, Kimi is talking and dancing to the same time. I wish, I would ever see him like this in an interview. arts" title="hearts" />
this is so cute arts" title="hearts" /> I wish we would know what they are talking! seems like they are telling some funny stories
the airport video is " title="crazy" /> " title="blink" />
there is also one from yesterday's Clear event http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTQxNTAyMjI0.html Kimi didn't even want to open the champagne and then the cork fell on his head h" title="hih" />
Kimi Raikkonen believes Lotus does not really have to speed to be at the front of the Chinese Grand Prix field, despite qualifying second.
The Finn was beaten only by Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes in Shanghai qualifying, beating the Ferraris and Nico Rosberg's Mercedes to the outside front row spot.
But Raikkonen remains sceptical about Lotus's pace.
"I knew the gap was quite big still and we don't have that speed right now," he said.
"Second is not too bad, it is the best I can gain with the team. I'd rather be in first place, but we didn't have the speed.
"We're missing downforce in the middle sector so we will see what we can do tomorrow."
Raikkonen believes the Lotus package has a similar level of competitiveness to its potential in Malaysia, but that the team is doing a better job of getting that pace out of the car this weekend.
"We had a very small update, I would say it is the same as in the last race," he said.
"It seems to be working OK. We have some issues with some stuff, but it's a similar story to Malaysia.
"The car works the way I want it to. It has been a pretty tricky weekend to get things exactly right, it's very sensitive, but we are happy to be where we are now."
Championship leader Sebastian Vettel and McLaren's Jenson Button chose to sit out the pole battle and run medium tyres in Q3, hoping for a race strategy advantage.
Raikkonen was confident Lotus's tactics were right.
"We believe our strategy is the best one, that is why we did it," he said. "If qualifying was better on primes, then you would do it."
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Fri Apr 12, 2013 4:49 pm
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" title="there" /> Poor boy 
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" title="bored" /> during the PK 
