A modest 17th place for Romain Grosjean’s 100th Grand Prix start
A tough qualifying session for the Frenchman in Austin, who didn't even make it into Q2! Against a backdrop of celebrations, the Haas F1 Team driver expressed his disappointment at the course of events to journalists...
Everything seemed to come together for Romain Grosjean and the Haas F1 Team on this eighteenth meeting of the 2016 season. By happy coincidence, the former Lotus F1 Team driver will celebrate his 100th start tomorrow, on the home ground of the team of the eponymous boss. But so far in Austin, everything is going wrong!
After an already sluggish Friday, concluding in 15th and 18th position, the Genevan was unable to extract himself from the last quarter of the pack. No progress could get him out of this bad situation. As in Monza, here he is again in the depths of the standings, with this pale 17th place. In any case, it cannot be said that this performance was unexpected for our driver, far from it:
Nothing particular to report for this session. I lacked performance, but I knew we would be in this situation this weekend.
Fernando Alonso blocked me a bit between turns 18 and 19, which certainly cost us some time. »
Worse, number 8 hardly looks for excuses. Haas has visibly rediscovered its old demons: issues with downforce and brakes.
« We are suffering from a poor balance with the car, we have had so many problems that we couldn’t resolve everything! When you miss Friday’s practice, it’s always complicated: there are no miracles on Saturday. We know we’re lacking aero support to do well here: we can’t make it happen! »
But is there anything positive to take away from this session? After all, Grosjean started 19th in Melbourne and climbed up to sixth place, even though the race was made easier by the intervention of the safety car.
Anyway, in the paddock, the answer to the above-mentioned question was: « No.
I didn’t do a long stint yesterday so I don’t know how the car will perform. I had a lot of problems with the front wheel locking up several times. I was afraid of damaging my tires quite quickly. So we are in our place.
Superstitious or not, is there a curse at every symbolic race for the leader of the American team? We also recall a recent anonymous Chinese Grand Prix punctuated by a retirement, at the time of his 30th birthday:
In any case, it’s like that every time it’s my birthday! Now, there’s still a good atmosphere in the team. We know where we can improve and what we need to focus on for next year. We are happy to be here, but when you come back from two Q3s in Japan, and you can’t get past Q1, it hurts.
To add insult to injury, Grosjean could not even take satisfaction in having beaten his teammate. For the 7th time this season, Esteban Gutierrez will start ahead of the Frenchman, with his 14th position. But it will apparently take a number of favorable circumstances to see an American car in the points at the finish of the Texas race…
