Romain Grosjean: “one car likes the cold and the other the heat”
After a Friday with very mixed results at Haas, Romain Grosjean discusses the peculiarities of the two Haas cars, still equipped with two distinct aerodynamic packages.
After the two Friday practice sessions, real contrasts are observed at Haas, particularly with Kevin Magnussen. Indeed, after a 5th place time on Friday morning, the Dane is in 12th position in the second practice session.
As for the Frenchman, the performances remain quite lackluster with a 12th place in FP1 and an 11th place in FP2 under cooler conditions.
Let’s recall that the Haas team still has two distinct aerodynamic packages. Magnussen is equipped with the latest developments while his teammate has the Melbourne package, dating back to March.
The Frenchman shares with us the strange observation emerging from Haas: We evaluated the different packages of the two cars. One likes the cold and the other likes the heat. Mine prefers the heat and Kevin’s goes super well when it’s cold. Positive in his speech despite this surprising finding, the Haas driver adds: For the team, it’s interesting to try to understand the difference between these two cars and why one doesn’t suffer from cool conditions but does from the heat and vice versa.
With the arrival of rain and probable risks in Saturday afternoon’s qualifying, Romain Grosjean believes that the developments of recent months will be beneficial in wet conditions: « We also ran a little on intermediates just in case tomorrow’s qualifying is rainy, to get an idea of the balance. I think the old car in these conditions is not great, it lacks aerodynamic downforce and we know it, we struggle to heat the tires and therefore we suffer with grip.»
To the question of the specification for tomorrow’s day, the decision is still uncertain: « I’m still wondering a bit, we’re not yet a hundred percent decided, but there is a good chance that I will stay with the old lady. Sunday it should be nice weather, but here qualifying is important, overtaking is quite complicated. So we will try to do the best work we can tomorrow. »
The hopes of the French therefore partly depend on the weather during the qualifications: “I hope the weather will be nice tomorrow,” he says with a smile.
From our special correspondent in Hungary
