Romain Grosjean offered a bleak assessment of Haas’ Austrian Grand Prix, saying his lack of grip was so bad that it felt like a wet race.
Haas looked strong on Saturday, with Kevin Magnussen qualifying fifth (he started 10th after a penalty) and Grosjean settling for 11th on the grid, but both drivers faded during Sunday’s race. The team has struggled to pin-point reasons for its lack of race pace in recent rounds.
“It was very, very, very… infinitely very complicated,” Grosjean said after the race, where he finished 16th. “We will find [a solution], eventually. It will take some time.
“We were fighting with the Williams early on in the race. I was saying to Kevin it felt like it was raining in the car in the first few laps.
“Literally no grip. No front. No rear. Very, very difficult. The balance was not good either. In Le Castellet the balance was okay but we had slow pace but here [in Austria] there was no balance, no pace.”
Magnussen turned in one of the qualifying displays of the season with his lap on Saturday, but his race was complicated by a gearbox-change penalty and then ruined completely by an early drive-through penalty for lining up slightly out of position in his grid slot. He finished in 19th, two laps down, and at one stage had been struggling to match the pace of Williams’ George Russell.
“We didn’t have any pace in the race, after qualifying P5 yesterday, so very strange and frustrating,” Magussen said. “I don’t understand it. It’s very strange. I don’t know where to look, I don’t know what to say, it’s really confusing.”