The worst Friday of my career for Grosjean in Singapore!
The French driver didn't beat about the bush to describe his catastrophic Friday, after an engine problem in the first session, followed by heavy contact with the wall in the second! Esteban Gutierrez led the Haas F1 Team's development program on his own, so to speak...
The hopes of the number 8 for a productive start to the weekend quickly vanished. Right from FP1, his car was unable to take to the track except for two modest installation laps, each interrupted by long minutes of waiting for the driver. Ultimately, a problem with the engine and air intake was detected, the source of the initial woes for the former Lotus member.
The problem, however, was fixed during the second session. 12 laps later, Grosjean lost control of his Haas VF 16 in the last corner. Drifting, he hit the protective walls at the edge of the track backward, tearing off a large part of his rear wing. That was the icing on the cake for a day truly to forget!
« I’ve never experienced anything worse in my Formula 1 career on a Friday! » he admitted. « We had some difficulties with the brakes, but also some issues with stability. I wasn’t comfortable in the car.
The car was very tricky, with my mistake, I couldn’t evaluate my new parts. So I don’t know exactly what was changed, but all I know is that nothing suited me anyway today.
Frustrating observation when you know that the American team brought new parts… supposed to better control the stability of the rear of the car. But did they really bring the necessary improvement?
« We don’t really know. » replied the native of Geneva. « I had both understeer and oversteer. It’s like my car wasn’t gripping the track, which largely caused my spin. We now need to check everything on my car to see if there’s a bad setup. »
A day at the level of entering the Top 10 for Gutierrez
FP1: 10th -> 1:48.109 (23 Laps); FP2: 11th -> 1:46.727 (13 Laps)
On the other hand, Esteban Gutierrez was able to complete the 23 turns of the circuit 23 times in the first part of the day. His second session allowed him to add 13 more laps to his training program.
With a good top speed (among the top 10 in FP1 here), Gutierrez also reassured himself on the clock with a 10th position in FP1 and an 11th position in FP2. Two sessions that were visibly satisfying in more ways than one:
It was quite an interesting day for me. We brought some innovations and it was very interesting to evaluate them. We thoroughly explored our new package. Our setup was well run-in, even in FP2. A lot of data will now need to be analyzed. It’s unfortunate that Romain couldn’t run much: having two sets of data to observe remains very important. That said, we will stay focused to do our best on Saturday.
The ex-Sauber driver will thus try to capitalize on his productive Friday to make it to Q3 once again. Let’s recall that Gutierrez reached this milestone for the first time this season at the last Grand Prix in Monza.
