Haas F1 Team had a disappointing day at Spa-Francorchamps after not bringing home any points in the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Romain Grosjean started in seventeenth place and finished fifteenth, while his team-mate, Kevin Magnussen, started twentieth, finishing in seventeenth place.
Both drivers started on the yellow-walled medium tyres, and pitted for a set of hards when the Safety Car was called following a serious accident on lap 10 between Williams Racing‘s George Russell and Alfa Romeo Racing ORLEN‘s Antonio Giovinazzi. Grosjean ran his tyres until the end of the race, while Magnussen pitted once again on lap 36 for a set of softs.
Grosjean said that although he would have preferred to finish higher up the grid than fifteenth, the fact he was able to battle with Scuderia Ferrari is something the team try to aim for during a race.
He said: “We wouldn’t necessarily haven taken fifteenth this morning, if offered it, but what we would have taken is to be able to fight with Ferrari.
“For us, that’s a benchmark, and in that aspect we did well. I thought I could keep Charles (Leclerc) behind me, but sadly on the last lap I had a bit of a lock up at turn one – anyway the tires were running out of life. It was fun in that aspect. We did the best behind Vettel and Leclerc; Alfa Romeo did a good job being in front of them.”
Grosjean’s team-mate Magnussen was pleased with his start, but he said he needed something to happen – such as adverse weather – in order to be able to try and help him gain positions and score points, but it did not happen, adding that it didn’t help that they were also lacking pace.
“We needed something to help us today, weather or something, but we didn’t get any. I had another good first lap though, I’m really happy about that. But from there we just didn’t really have the pace, especially on the first stint on the C3 tire. At the beginning of that stint I was very slow, just overheating the tires.”
He went on to say there was a point near the end of the stint when he was getting better, but each time he changed tyres he found himself struggling for pace again.
“I got that under control later on, then we pitted onto the C2 and it was a little bit like that again – just struggling a bit on the first part of the stint but getting better towards the end. I lost a position at the end when we pitted again. It’s been a tough day but there was not much we could do.”
Team principal Guenther Steiner said the only thing they could do following the disappointment of the weekend was to try to improve.
“I don’t have a lot to say today. It was obviously a disappointing result but not unexpected. This is where we are right now. The only way forward is to get better,” he said.
