Charlie Whiting admitted he was unhappy with the way Romain Grosjean’s VF-18 was shedding its bodywork during the Bahrain Grand Prix, with the FIA’s race director feeling it was ‘potentially dangerous’.
The Haas F1 Team driver had issues with body parts on the right-hand side of his car, with bits dropping off on track whilst his mechanics also pulled some more lose parts off during his pit stop, with Grosjean finishing well outside the points as a result of losing time thanks to an ill-balanced car.
However, for Whiting it was not good to see parts flying off the car, and it may mean the FIA take a closer look to ensure parts are well attached before joining the track action in the future.
“When anything comes off a car it’s potentially dangerous,” Whiting is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “With all this furniture, as some people call it, it doesn’t take much to make it weaker – a small contact will probably make it weaker, and it will start to disintegrate, which is what happened with Grosjean.
“One bit fell off, luckily it went onto the grass. A couple more bits came off, and then they removed another bit at their pitstop, but it’s not very satisfactory, to be quite honest.
“I think we really need to make sure all these things are well-attached. There’s so many of them now. Some of the stuff that comes off, even if it’s not very big, could do a lot of damage.”
