The Haas Formula 1 Team’s run of races without points continued on Sunday in Baku as Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez failed to reach the top 10 in the European Grand Prix.
Grosjean started the race from 11th on the grid and did work his way into the top 10 early on, only to slip back as the race wore on and lose more time due to a slow second pit stop.
“Car felt good at beginning of race, had some rear graining and lost performance,” Grosjean told NBCSN after the race.
“Too much rubbish in our radiators to clean them. That extra stop cost a lot of performance. Didn’t have any more mediums. It didn’t feel too bad. Biggest problem was rubbish in radiators.
“[There are] lots of positives from weekend, qualifying pace and some of race pace.
“Why so much graining on super-softs? Once we do understand that we’ll be in a much better position.”
Teammate Esteban Gutierrez had a quiet race, running no higher than 14th and finishing down in P16, meaning his points drought dating back to the 2013 Japanese Grand Prix continues.
“It wasn’t a good day for us. I had some damage to the car at the start, and then after that, I was just trying to recover as much as I could,” Gutierrez said.
“We didn’t have the pace to attack the front. I was struggling to overtake and to regain positions. Overall, it wasn’t a great day. Now we need to keep our focus for the next race and keep optimistic.
“We’re not where we want to be, but we’ll keep pushing and try to optimize everything to get the most from the car for Austria.”
Haas’ struggles in recent races have coincided with a reshuffle of personnel on the pit wall, as expanded on by NBCSN Will Buxton in a recent column for RACER.
