Romain Grosjean says he has not yet found the sweet spot of his VF-18 so far this weekend at the Circuit de Monaco, with the Haas F1 Team driver ending eighteenth fastest in the second practice session on Thursday.
The under-pressure Frenchman had been ninth fastest in the morning session but despite improving his time later in the day, he fell down the pecking order, and Grosjean says it was hard to get the tyres to work properly across the lap, and should they manage to do so, the lap times should tumble.
“We haven’t been able to find a sweet spot on the car and we haven’t found the grip we wanted to have for around here,” said Grosjean. “Obviously, we’re not very happy with the positions.
“Hopefully, we’re going to get the tyres to work better, get the grip out of them, and then the performance should rise quite nicely.”
Grosjean sees no reason why the VF-18 that has been competitive pretty much every weekend in 2018 cannot be competitive again this weekend, particularly as he knows everyone will be working hard to get the car working better ahead of final practice on Saturday morning.
“Right now, we’re not looking like we’d make it to Q3, but it’s about finding the grip on the track,” admitted the Frenchman. “I’m sure the engineers are going to work really hard and get everything in the window with the tyres, the temperature, and make sure we get the grip out of them.
“If we do so, the car’s been really good everywhere, so I don’t see why we shouldn’t be competitive.”
