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Grosjean: Haas F1 tyre struggles "unsurprising but f***ing annoying"

Romain Grosjean has described the repeat of Haas Formula 1 team's tyre struggles in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix as "not too surprising" but "fucking annoying".

Haas started the season with the fourth-fastest car but has not scored points since Kevin Magnussen finished sixth in the opening race in Australia, as it failed to convert strong one-lap pace into race performance in Bahrain and China.

In Azerbaijan, neither car made it into the top-10 shootout in qualifying, Magnussen finished a distant 13th and Grosjean fell out of the points before retiring with a brake problem.

 
Asked if it was not surprising to struggle in Baku, where Haas had predicted a difficult time, Grosjean said: "Yeah, but fucking annoying.

"Somehow not too surprising, but we need to sit down, really have a strong think about what we can do.

"Barcelona may be warm so that should be fine, but then we have Canada and Monaco and again, if we want to fight for fourth or fifth in the constructors' championship we've got to be able to be good in all circumstances.

"That's really something we need to look into, understand and solve - as well as these small issues we had in my side of the garage, which has been quite a fair bit."

Grosjean was running quite competitively before he locked up and ran down an escape road, which cost him several positions.

The Frenchman, who is one of four drivers yet to score a point in 2019, said he "couldn't really trust the front tyres" during the grand prix.

"The pace on the medium was a bit better than maybe what we thought, and I could play a little bit with the guys around," Grosjean said.

"But then I locked up in Turn 15, went straight and came back, but I had to do a pitstop."

Grosjean eventually retired because he "completely lost the brake pedal", but his team boss Gunther Steiner said he had "no confidence" in the car before that.

"He said, 'I'm not going to do anything stupid because it doesn't help me if I overdrive it then crash it'," Steiner explained.

"We learned that one last year, that doesn't help. Sometimes it's better if you know it isn't working and you live with it.

"Is it great? No. But would it be great to be slow and have two destroyed cars? No."

Zdroj: autosport.com