Haas: Encouraging starts for Grosjean and Gutierrez
Romain Grosjean was just outside the top 10 in both free practice sessions at the European Grand Prix, and is confident for the rest of the weekend. His team-mate, Esteban Gutierrez, has the same sense of achievement.
The discovery of a new track is always exciting for a driver, especially when it is laid out in the heart of a city.
Romain Grosjean therefore enjoyed driving his Haas between the fortifications of Baku: « Discovering a new track is exciting on one hand but very tricky on the other. It’s not easy to find the right balance, but I’m happier with this than in our recent outings, so it’s quite positive. It wasn’t easy to find the right settings with the track temperatures today, but we are in a good position. We are just on the edge of Q3, which wouldn’t be a bad position for us to start tomorrow. »
His teammate Esteban Gutierrez, on the other hand, is quite pleased to have been able to complete his day’s program without encountering any problems, except for a few excursions into the run-off areas: « It was a productive Friday for us. We had a good program and we were able to complete it. It was interesting to discover this new circuit; it’s really a nice track to drive on. The car seems to be performing well and the grip is better than we expected. »
A small touch with the wall in FP2 in the narrowest part of the circuit won’t spoil the Mexican’s good mood today: « I had a small contact with the wall at the end of FP2, where the track becomes very narrow, due to slight understeer, but there was no damage to the car. »
