A dejected Romain Grosjean admitted he is on the back foot after a series of setbacks in practice on Friday in Singapore.
The Haas driver managed just two laps in the opening session at the Marina Bay circuit due to an engine inlet air leak which required an engine change.
“It was the worst Friday you could imagine for us,” said Grosjean afterwards. “I didn’t get a lap in this morning, and then we had some issues this afternoon that we need to solve.”
Having only managed a dozen laps Grosjean is also concerned about how quick Haas will be at this circuit. “There was just no performance,” he said. “It’s a very bad way to start one of the most difficult grand prix of the year.”
Grosjean’s problems meant responsibility for testing the team’s new parts fell entirely to Esteban Gutierrez.
“When you have new parts on the car, you normally want to do as much running as possible to learn and to find the balance,” said team principal Guenther Steiner.
“We’re a little behind in our program today, but hopefully we can make up for it tomorrow in FP3.”
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OmarRoncal - Go Seb!!! (@)
16th September 2016, 17:42
Why does he keep venting out his frustration? The guy sounds as if he can’t stand being beaten too often by Gutierrez now. He should remember it’s a rookie team and that they have at least provided him with the tools to score bunch of points.
nase
16th September 2016, 17:48
In a parallel universe where he actually blamed anyone for those problems, the latter parts of your statement would make sense.
evered7 (@evered7)
16th September 2016, 18:09
Grosjean’s stock has fallen heavily this year. I expected him to whip Guti based on their prior performance in F1 but not only has he managed to not do it, he has also crashed a lot of times and been slower than Guti on outright pace as well a lot of times.
Tough times for RoGro.
Mulsanne (@mulsanne)
17th September 2016, 8:14
Just remind me how many points Guti has scored this year?
evered7 (@evered7)
17th September 2016, 10:34
@mulsanne Yes and forget all the issues Guti had with his car?
Todfod (@todfod)
17th September 2016, 10:27
I would have to agree to a certain extent. He started the season phenomenally, but gradually has looked sub par to a teammate who is widely considered to be pure rubbish. I hope he finds his rhythm again, because it’s hard to believe that a driver that could match and even beat Raikonnen is going to get beaten by a driver who got convincingly beaten by Sutil.
evered7 (@evered7)
16th September 2016, 18:13
Ok, what happened to his rear wing? Did he chew it off?
evered7 (@evered7)
16th September 2016, 18:15
I am guessing that is a result of his crash? Looks cool though.
evered7 (@evered7)
16th September 2016, 18:15
Read the article :(
WheelToWheel (@lolzerbob)
16th September 2016, 18:16
Stop blaming them team for everything, there a new team and trying hard.
I simply don’t rate Grosjean, because he was beaten by an expired Raikkonen two years in a row, managed to cause a six car crash and get a race ban, and only be able to beat Maldonado. And to add that be worse than Gutierrez. I simply don’t rate Grosjean in the same category as Hulkenberg and Perez and think he’s lower down with the likes of Nasr, Ericsson, Palmer and Magnussen
HUHHII (@huhhii)
16th September 2016, 20:29
@lolzerbob – Word. I mean I think Kimi is still right there amongst the top drivers, and fully expected GRO to be beaten at Lotus, but even after Kimi-comparisons GRO hasn’t shown any skills whatsoever. It’s true he scored lots of valuable points at the beginning of the season but GUT had tremendous technical problems at that time (and ALO doing rookie mistake costing him points). Grosjean got lots of praise at the start of the season but I’m sure Gutierrez could’ve achieved the same if he just had problem-free weekends.
anon
16th September 2016, 21:03
@lolzerbob, the thing is, the comparison against Raikkonen is not really fair given that the team were giving Kimi preferential treatment, and made it quite clear that Kimi was the focus of their development work – for example, the long wheelbase version of the E21 was developed with Kimi’s handling preferences in mind.
hyoko
17th September 2016, 8:12
The worst you can imagine? You are still in one piece, kiddo
Homerlovesbeer (@homerlovesbeer)
17th September 2016, 14:49
His Saturday was even worse, crashing out in Q2. “Worst car I’ve ever driven” he said over team radio.