Romain Grosjean admits he still has a lot to learn as the Lotus team prepares for the first European F1 event of the season this weekend in Spain.
Grosjean heads into the Catalunya race having been buoyed by his maiden podium finish last time out in Bahrain, where he joined team-mate
Kimi Raikkonen inside the top three.
The French driver then set the quickest time during three days of testing at Mugello last week but he insisted he wasn't getting too carried away about his chances in Spain with the focus being to simply maintain the progress made so far.
“We will have to see what we can pull out of the hat!” he said. “We still need to build step by step. The two last races have been really good, both for the team and for myself. I will give my best in Barcelona and the goal for the next races is to get as far up the driver standings as I can.
“I still have a lot of things to learn, I've only completed four Grand Prix as a full time driver for the season. It's not too much experience but every Grand Prix I finish is a fantastic experience for me. For sure the podium in Bahrain gives me confidence for Barcelona.”
Grosjean added that qualifying would be a vital part of the weekend in Barcelona given the expected difficulty in overtaking through the Spanish event.
“In Barcelona it will be important to qualify well, and it will be much harder to overtake than Bahrain,” he said. “Qualifying is an area where we can still improve a little bit ourselves, we have some ideas of how to improve, and hopefully we'll get on to the front row.”