The Haas Formula 1 team is planning to race with Brembo brakes in next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix after an unsuccessful bid to switch supplier last time out in Russia.
Haas has endured a number of braking issues on its cars since joining the F1 grid at the start of 2016, and evaluated a change to Carbon Industrie brakes for the Russian Grand Prix after a test in Bahrain.
The team used Carbon Industrie parts for Friday practice, only to then make the switch back to Brembo for the remainder of the race weekend.
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said that work is still ongoing to try and resolve the braking problems, but the American squad is planning to race with Brembo again in Spain next weekend.
“We started off with CI brakes in Sochi. We weren’t getting enough cooling for them, and if you don’t cool them enough, you overheat the brake itself and the pedal gets long,” Steiner said.
“Also, the wear is very high. We looked into it to see if we could survive a race, but we realized we could not. Therefore, the decision was taken to go back onto the Brembo.
“As it stands now, we will race Brembo in Barcelona.
“To figure out how we can fix the problem will take a bit, but we will get there. It isn’t an easy problem to solve. We will take our time.
“We know what we’ve got after our Bahrain test with CI brakes, and after Sochi in FP1 and FP2. We know what we need to do and what needs to get done, but it will take a little bit of time.”
Despite the ongoing braking problems, Steiner stressed that Haas is working tirelessly to find a solution, but that it will take time to do so.
“Everybody needs to understand that this is a very sophisticated brake system. It is not easy to fix,” Steiner said.
“The obvious question, and rightly people ask, is that it cannot be this difficult to fix a brake. It actually is. It isn’t easy. This is because they’re highly complicated technologies, they’re highly advanced. When you change from one to the other, you encounter issues you’re not aware of until you try it properly.
“Without testing during the season, you need to do it in FP1 and FP2. You always have to wait two weeks to do something. So you can never go and do a proper test and do modifications. You always have to fit it in somehow. It compromises your testing, and that’s why it takes so long.
“It’s not that we’re not working hard. Our people are very competent and can do this, it just takes time.”
