Grosjean gets Haas suspension upgrade after France DNF
Haas Formula 1 driver Romain Grosjean will be able to use the team's new rear suspension in the Austrian Grand Prix following his retirement in France last weekend.
Teammate Kevin Magnussen had the new rear suspension which entailed changes to the gearbox in France and, without his retirement, Grosjean would potentially have been stuck with the old gearbox and thus the original suspension until the summer break.
But Haas retired Grosjean from the race in Paul Ricard, allowing him to use a new gearbox this weekend.
That means the cars will now be mechanically the same, allowing the team to focus on aero and set-up changes this weekend.
"I think there's been a lot of analysis," said Grosjean. "It's great that it's happened. There are things that are not as we were hoping, and things that are better than we thought, and we just need to make sure that the weaknesses we have, we assess them.
"There's a lot going on, a lot of testing that we're going to do here, a lot of different set-ups. Obviously we know we've been struggling with the tyres. At one point it's easy to say it's the tyres, but we just need to get the cars to work the tyres, and that's what we're aiming to do here."
Regarding the approach the team will take in Austria, he said: "At the end the cars are quite similar. We're just trying different things, then in free practice we're probably going to try one option on one car, and another option on another car.
"When you don't have any testing, that's the only chance you have. At least here it's warm, so it's going to be consistent through the whole weekend. Hopefully we can have a few answers."
Magnussen admitted that the team doesn't know how competitive it will be this weekend, despite its good record at the Red Bull Ring.
"There's a little bit of a sense of uncertainty, because we don't really know what to expect," said the Dane. "We know we've got a good car, aerodynamically, and a car that can perform well sometimes.
"But then we found ourselves in situations where the car isn't performing at all, and we can't really point at the problem. It's very confusing.
"We're working very hard at trying to locate the problem, and take a direction of where to look. It's easy to say that the tyres aren't working, but there's got to be more to it than temperatures and stuff.
"There are a lot of things to look at on an F1 car. It is a bit difficult at the moment. This track has been good to us in the past, so fingers crossed that it will be the same this year."
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About this article
| Series | Formula 1 |
| Event | Austrian GP |
| Drivers | Romain Grosjean |
| Teams | Haas F1 Team |
| Author | Adam Cooper |
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