Haas driver Romain Grosjean was on the receiving end of an embarrassing on-track moment. The French driver downplayed his bizarre pit-lane crash when the first practice session kicked off at the British Grand Prix.
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Ahead of the weekend, the Haas F1 team experimented with Grosjean’s car, even opting for a daring move. In other words, they reverted back to the Australian GP specification, which they deemed was far quicker. This was because, Romain Grosjean felt uncomfortable ever since Haas introduced a major upgrade at the Spanish Grand Prix.
Unfortunately, his hopes of extracting maximum potential from the swapped car took a hit. Romain Grosjean lost control on exit from the pit-lane, spun and crashed into a wall. The impact broke his front wing and had to limp around the track before returning to the pit-lane.
When he returned to the circuit after 40 minutes of repairs, he spun on his first flying lap with the new specification on a day which saw numerous drivers — including five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton — struggle to keep their cars on the newly-resurfaced Silverstone tarmac.
Speaking of the faux pas, Romain Grosjean said, “[I had] Cold tyres, and when I removed the pitlane limiter, the car spun. It was a bit of an awkward moment, let’s say!”
“It’s life. We laughed about it, I think that’s what you should do. It didn’t annoy us too much for the remainder of the day.”
With regard to the other spin, he said: “Turn 6 was a bit dirty and bumpy and just difficult. New tarmac always brings some new and different type of grip, it got better in the afternoon but it was definitely a place where it was a bit tricky.
“It was my first lap and I didn’t really know what to expect. The grip was outstanding in Turn 3 and 4 and I was expecting the same in Turn 6 and it wasn’t.”
The good news for Romain Grosjean is that early signs from the new set-up have been positive.
“The feeling is very good in the car — much better than it was recently, which is great. I think the performance is not there [yet], which we can expect, especially with the wind, the wind is a big factor in our whole package.
“The feeling is really good so we need to analyse everything we can to ensure we can actually transfer that feeling into the new package and then into performance.”
