A Haas driver in the top 10 has been vanishingly rare during the 2020 Formula 1 season, yet Romain Grosjean managed to be in the top six in both Friday practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix.
As Grosjean himself put it: “today was absolutely mega”.
While Haas is not suddenly a contender for the third row, this pace does hint that it could be on for its strongest weekend of a difficult season, in which Kevin Magnussen’s point for 10th in the Hungarian Grand Prix has been the only tangible result.
As well as being quick, Grosjean was also confident in the car and believes there was a little more time left on the table had he nailed a perfect qualifying simulation lap in Q2.
“It’s getting better and better especially [using] the hard tyre at the beginning of FP2 and then on the soft gaining 2.5s, so obviously it’s never going to be a perfect lap because you can’t gain so much and then get it perfectly right,” said Grosjean.
“There’s a few corners that I’m going to have to look at and to work on and then we should be able to fight for a good position.
“I hope nothing changes, I hope it all stays the same and tomorrow we can go for a good quali and that would definitely set up a good weekend.”
TEARING UP THE FORM BOOK
Out of the 21 serious sessions Haas has participated in this year prior to today, discounting the rain-hit second practice in Hungary in which seven drivers didn’t post a time, it has made the top 10 just once – Magnussen’s ninth place in the opening free practice session of the season in Austria.
Yet Grosjean was sixth this morning, 1.506s off the pace, then fifth in the afternoon, just 1.250s off Lewis Hamilton’s fastest time.
“There’s some more work on the car to bring it even more to my liking, but generally what a day!” :: Romain Grosjean
That practice two time in particular was a surprise given all drivers attempted a qualifying simulation lap using the soft tyre. But the 1.626% deficit was actually only Haas’s second-best FP2 performance of the year, having been 0.148% closer on the British Grand Prix weekend.
But in that Silverstone session, Grosjean was 15th, with the bump in position a result of four other teams – Ferrari, McLaren, Racing Point and AlphaTauri – dropping behind after difficult sessions today.
Grosjean stressed that the Haas has not changed since the start of the season thanks to the fact the team has no budget allocated for upgrades, but did allude to the progress made at Silverstone that ensured this pace relative to the front wasn’t a complete outlier. Even if the position was.
“In all fairness, I don’t know and no one really knows, it’s the same car as it was since the beginning of the year,” he said when asked what was behind the strong pace today.
“We made some good set-up work at Silverstone. The Silverstone performance was really good but it was power sensitive, here it’s maybe a little bit less.
“Sixth in FP1, fifth in FP2, the long run pace was pretty good so we’re really happy with that.
“There’s some more work on the car to bring it even more to my liking, but generally what a day!”
The key to Grosjean’s lap was his pace in sector one, where he posted a time of 21.936s on his fastest lap – just 0.476% off the pace.
He was significantly slower in the middle sector, 3.5% off the pace, then was 1.9% off in the final sector.
That is dramatically different for the three sectors, but is perhaps in keeping with a Ferrari-powered team that has pursued a more trimmed-out downforce philosophy to try to mitigate the straightline speed disadvantage even at an aero-dependent track like Barcelona.
Grosjean could also have strung together a slightly better lap than the 1m18.133s given his fastest middle sector was on his second push lap, having struggled even more with understeer on his quickest lap.
CIRCUIT CHARACTERISTICS
Barcelona is a circuit that has played to the aerodynamic characteristics of the Haas in recent years. Both Magnussen and Grosjean qualified in the top 10 in 2018 and ’19 and converted three out of those four strong starting positions into points with a best of sixth for the Dane in 2018. Last year, it was the only dry race where Haas managed a double-points finish.
It’s also a circuit where aerodynamic performance is vital, which partly mitigates the disadvantage of the Ferrari engine. Even if making Q3 is asking too much, Haas a serious chance to get both cars into Q2 for the first time this season.
“There are still a lot of things we need to get right – which we could get wrong” :: Guenther Steiner
That might not sound much, but that would be a real victory for the team given its struggles so far.
“These have been our best Friday sessions of the year,” said team principal Guenther Steiner.
“This kind of circuit, where there’s less high-speed sectors, it helps us as it’s a lot less power sensitive.
“We’ve always been relatively good here in Barcelona, I don’t know the reason why. I was cautiously optimistic in testing at the beginning of the year, and this shows that I wasn’t wrong.
“So, it looks encouraging but I’m not getting over-enthusiastic about it yet because we still have to qualify on Saturday and race on Sunday.
“There are still a lot of things we need to get right – which we could get wrong, so I don’t want to be negative. But overall, I think this is a big boost for the team.”
GROSJEAN’S IMPROVING FORM
Another factor is also Grosjean’s underlying pace. While he’s had plenty of mishaps in his F1 career, he’s always been a prodigiously fast driver even if he hasn’t always been able to show it.
After qualifying at Silverstone, which he rated as one of his three best qualifying performances for the Haas team since joining it ahead of the 2016 season, he said it “reminds me of the good old days with Lotus” – referencing his stellar performance with the team in the second half of 2013 in particular.
Perhaps more significant in extracting this pace was a combination of set-up changes and a shift in driving approach that allowed him to deliver arguably the best qualifying lap of the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix weekend.
Grosjean likes to attack the corner on the brakes, requiring a strong front end and good rear stability, but found a slightly more conservative approach helped him be more at one with the car.
“I absolutely love to attack the corner entry as hard as they can,” said Grosjean last weekend. “And that’s been always my driving style: to aim for the apex from the braking point and just carry as much brake and speed as I can in there.
“Obviously, with the Haas for five years, it’s been complicated to do that. It’s just not a characteristic that the car can really accept.
“The car’s got limitations that [means] there’s things that I cannot do that are the strengths of my driving style.
“So this weekend, we’ve kept working in the same direction as we did last weekend and really brought the car in a much better place for me in terms of feeling.
“I just drove a little bit differently in qualifying, trying to stay within the operation window of the, of the character or characteristic of the car and that worked well.”
Magnussen’s potential also should not be overlooked. He was ninth-fastest in first practice today, but was 16th and 0.628s slower than Grosjean in the second session having not strung together a strong lap together – losing most of his time to Grosjean in the final part of the lap, particularly from the chicane to the line.
“I didn’t get a great run on low fuel in FP2 so the best lap time doesn’t look good but it reminds you of what’s in the car and then in high fuel it was very positive,” said Magnussen.
“It seems to be working very well around here. Hopefully we won’t lose too much when it comes to qualifying when people go quicker, but I think we’re looking good.”
WILL IT CARRY OVER?
Haas will definitely not be so competitive tomorrow, but the real question is can it avoid regressing to its usual position of usually going out in Q1 considering it has only reached Q2 three times out of a possible 10 this year?
Given its struggles and Ferrari’s lack of qualifying engine modes, advancing to the second stage of qualifying could lay the foundations for a genuine shot at picking up a point given a well-executed race and a bit of luck.
“It’s encouraging but we need to really understand where it comes from” :: Guenther Steiner
That might not sound much, but for a team that’s struggling badly to score that would represent a big success. But for now, it’s just a question of building on today’s progress.
“How we sum it up is we need to stay calm,” said Steiner of the approach for the rest of the weekend.
“It was a good day today but I want to stay grounded. Qualifying is tomorrow and the race is on Sunday so still a long way to go but obviously it’s encouraging.
“I don’t want to sound negative about it, it’s encouraging but we need to really understand where it comes from.
“We’re competitive, it looks like, but we still need to get a little bit more understanding and also Kevin up to the speed of Romain for tomorrow and Sunday.
“But I’m pretty happy.”
