Autosportfoto

F1 Abu Dhabi GP: ‘No explanations’ for inconsistent Haas – Grosjean

Romain Grosjean says Haas' needs to get a better understanding of its car to ensure its flashes of speed are tempered with greater consistency.

The American team has shown impressive midfield pace at times during its maiden F1 season, but the VF16 car been criticised by both Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez for inconsistencies in the package, particularly handling characteristics and brakes.

Though Grosjean enjoyed one of his stronger weekends in terms of raw pace during the Brazilian Grand Prix after qualifying seventh - only to crash in the wet before the race got underway -, the impressive single lap form came despite persistent set-up issues in practice.

Indeed, while Grosjean is encouraged by the bursts of form, he has urged Haas to establish an understanding to ensure it is achieved more consistently, a trait that he says was a strength initially during pre-season testing.

"[Consistency] is something we need to understand because the first thing I say in winter testing is that the stability of the car and the traction were the strengths and you could do very consistent lap times without having any problems," he said. "It was the case initially in the year and then we had problems and then we changed chassis and came back to better and now we are struggling again. Where does it come from? We don't really know.

"Brazil was a good example, there were a few snaps that we could explain; rear locking or too much aero balance [on Friday]. But a few of the snaps we cannot explain like FP3 coming into Turn 4 -- we have no explanation.

"I had to abort the lap from Turn 6 because I lost the rear, again we don't have any explanation. There's a few bits and pieces we need to put together and analyse, where to do, what to do, to make sure the car comes back to a more consistent level."

Ahead of the 2016 Formula 1 finale in Abu Dhabi, Grosjean has so far scored all of Haas' 29 points with a best finish of fifth place in the Bahrain Grand Prix. 

Zdroj: crash.net