Haas denies rumours Grosjean will be replaced at Hockenheim

2019 German Grand Prix

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Haas has rejected rumours Romain Grosjean will be stood down by the team before next week’s German Grand Prix.

Several publications ran reports quoting an anonymous Reddit user stating Grosjean would be replaced by Mercedes junior driver Esteban Ocon at the Hockenheimring.

However a Haas spokesperson confirmed to RaceFans the team will retain its usual driver line-up of Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen in Germany.

The pair were strongly rebuked by team principal Guenther Steiner after they collided on the first lap of the British Grand Prix, forcing both cars out of the race.

“Something touched my rear wheel and punctured me,” explained Grosjean afterwards. “It’s obviously a spot I cannot see, a blind spot.”

The collision came at an especially poor time for Haas as the team was running its cars in different configurations in a bid to understand its set-up problems with the VF-19.

“It’s a shame because we had a race where we wanted to check different packages and the car felt really good on the laps to the grid,” he said. “I had some good hope for the race and obviously they were done straight away.”

Grosjean also damaged his car when he spun into the pit wall during practice.

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40 comments on “Haas denies rumours Grosjean will be replaced at Hockenheim”

  1. Did the same Reddit source say, that Haas will also switch to Mercedes engines at Hockenheim?!

    1. Anonymous Redditors are also my go-to guys for F1 info. Its good to see that publications use the same high quality sources.

      1. Indeed!

  2. Bottas really really really hopes this is true.

  3. Several publications ran reports quoting an anonymous Reddit user

    This is a serious question: Who reads publications who quote random people wildly speculating on Reddit? because I have not seen a single story which mentioned this possibility and I think that is because I only read reputable sources.

    1. @geemac Judging by the speed with which rumours like this get around, huge numbers of people.

      For some, how reliable a publication is matters a lot less than whether they like what it’s telling them.

      1. @keithcollantine In that case could your next headline please be “Williams win 2019 World Constructors Championship”…

        1. @geemac I think the difference, and the reason why that rumor took much traction, is that the depicted scenarios was pretty plausible. No one will ever believe in Williams winning today.
          The rumor was also in a certain way more reputable since the mods on /r/Formula1 verified that the OP was who he claimed to be.

          So, even with Haas now dismissing everything, I tend to believe that something was true behind the rumor but they couldn’t arrange everything in time. We’ll see how it goes in the following races, maybe at Spa after the summer break.

      2. @keithcollantine – yourself & Dieter need to lobby Apple to have them work with you on curating their F1 newsfeed for iphones in the USA. It’s absolutely atrocious, barely one notch above reddit, with poorly written articles laden featuring grammatical & spelling errors, incorrectly summising days old events via the hindsight analysis of twitter feeds, youtube videos & online video games. Not too mention the fantasy pieces where they posit silly scenarios such as Haas replacing Grosjean for Germany with Ocon who will also bring Mercedes engines along with him for the weekend. If & when F1 gains more of a foothold in America the fanbase will be blissfully ignorant, to how the sport actually operates, after reading this nonsense day in day out. HELP!!!

      3. JohnnyRye (@)
        20th July 2019, 4:39

        I’m sorry Keith, but I’m confused about your reply, and this is not meant to write it off, rather prompt clarification.

        Your reply seems to put down sites that use unsubstantiated reports to generate views… And I would wholeheartedly agree that RaceFans typically doesn’t do that, had you not included this very story in your Round-up… thus perpetuating the rumour?

        How can RaceFans expect to set itself apart as a reputable site if you include unsubstantiated rumours like this, while putting them down in a separate reply? Seems a touch hypocritical? I’m not intending this to call you out, and am genuinely interested in a clarification of some kind, even in lieu of approving this post for public view.

        Thanks Kieth…will still visit site… how’s that for irony!?

        1. It’s included in the the roundup because Haas have denied it. The news is that Haas denied it. That’s a reputable source.

          Of the three F1 news sites I read frequently, only PF1 actually reported the Reddit story.

        2. @johnnyrye

          had you not included this very story in your Round-up… thus perpetuating the rumour?

          No, I didn’t put any of the original reports in the round-up.

          1. JohnnyRye (@)
            21st July 2019, 15:54

            @keithcollantine
            You’re correct in that it wasn’t included in the Round-up, that was my mistake, however you dedicated a whole story to it…and instead focused your reply on my mistake to dodge the point of my post.

            If you don’t see the hypocrisy of calling other sites’ reputation into question for perpetuating this rumour, after posting a dedicated article on the topic yourself, then I’ve wasted my time in seeking clarification.

            I still enjoy the aggregated nature of RaceFans, but question the motive as I don’t see it as more reputable as you believe it is, or are trying to make it.

      4. What I do not get about these other publications is why did they not confirm or contact Haas? The reason it is so urgent to get the first scoop and get the click bait machine going. At least one of those publication is still carrying this as its main story. Thank you for taking the effort to sound out those rumours.

    2. @geemac, it is one of those situations where, I imagine, one publication starts with the story and then others recycle that same story from the one site that originally picked up on it.

      Over time, what then tends to happen is that the original source is lost, so instead of being accredited to a random poster on Reddit, it instead start being attributed to one of the previous sites that reported it. That then tends to give the story more of a veneer of plausibility, and enables it to get recycled with more frequency by one of the many sites that tends to traffic in this sort of low grade rumour mill material.

      Furthermore, it helps that the story does have enough of a ring of plausibility for it to be able to gain traction. The idea that Grosjean is out of favour with Haas on the back of Silverstone is plausible, the fact that Mercedes wants to find a seat for Ocon is widely known and we know that Mercedes has negotiated with other midfield teams to find a seat for Ocon in the past – so the idea of suggesting that Haas might replace Grosjean with Ocon is plausible enough for people to then want to repeat the claim.

    3. Better question… Who knew Ocon had a reddit account?!?

      1. It’s a typical reddit user, so very likely.

    4. The user’s identity—while anonymous to the public—was verified by the subreddit mods. The rumour itself was always unsubstantiated, and thus reputable sources were right not to cover it. But this is a slightly different set of circumstances than a random Reddit user’s wild speculation somehow getting picked up by even less-than-reputable news sources.

  4. Somewhere in the world, there is an anonymous reddit user howling with laughter

    1. Or he is rambling mad.

      “Potatoes will take over the world on the 4 of march 2032”
      “All women are robots trying to invade Finland”
      “Ocon will replace Grosjean before the German GP”

      You know, like 90 % of the discussions on reddit.

      1. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
        19th July 2019, 16:34

        You laugh now, but youll be first in the frier in 13 years when the spudjugation happens

        1. @fullcoursecaution – I laughed at “spudjugation”, nice one!

    2. What are the odds that it’s William Storey?

      1. @squaregoldfish, can’t be – there’s no reference to Red Bull, disloyal shareholders or accusations Haas are too slow, and the writing style of the original post is too coherent to match Storey’s ‘discursive’ style.

  5. “ the team will retain the same driver lineup ……..in Germany…”

    Sometimes these rumours are wrong while being right.

  6. Sounds like a yarn spun by a recently unemployed bearded chap to me!

  7. Alternate Headline: “Wishful Haas fans hoping Grosjean FINALLY sacked by team at Hockenheim”

    I count myself as one of those fans. Heck, I was hoping he would get the ax last season after Spain, but NOOOOOO. Now more lost points. Kmag is only slightly better, I’d have sacked the both of them after last weekend, only that superlicence drivers arent exactly a dime a dozen right now, just look at RedBull/Toro Rosso. At least give the backup driver a chance at this point. Grosjean is done. Done I tell ya.

  8. Formula 1 could lose a driver capable of wrecking a car through sheer power of moaning.

  9. I never really bought into this rumor in the first place.

  10. I don’t fault people for being hungry for rumors, but I never have and never will put stock into anything on Reddit.

    Regarding Grosjean, he’s a driver that really managed to win me over, but I’m about ready to give up on him. He managed to convincingly outperform Kimi in the closing half of 2013, completely humiliated Pastor Maldonado, and his performance margin over Esteban Gutierrez was at least as convincing as Hulkenberg’s. Even his first season with Magnussen as a team mate, he was clearly better.
    For some reason, since 2018, he’s been a different driver, with only flashes of his form shining through.
    I wouldn’t say he’s performing notably worse than Magnussen, but it’s like he’s only really behind the wheel for half of the races lately. And with so much talent waiting to get into F1, that’s just not good enough.

    1. Agreed @bforth. I think he’d make an excellent sports car driver

    2. @bforth The past 2 years have been a combination of him/the car struggling with tires on top of him struggling mentally to get on top of the struggles.

      Romain strikes me as a bit like Heinz-Harold Frentzen in that when he’s comfortable & things are going well it puts his confidence up which reflects with strong on track performances. However when he’s struggling and/or feeling uncomfortable in the car it drags his confidence down which results in less impressive on track performances.

      I’d say 2013 is a perfect example. Some struggles early on but once he got on top of them & began stringing together some good runs which put his confidence sky high & that helped him to start matching/beating Kimi Raikkonen over the latter part of the year with a string of podiums.

  11. I hope Haas at least told both drivers that they are driving for their jobs and another display like that will see one or both looking for work.

  12. Its was a nice rumour while it lasted.

  13. Damn! I’ve got to go check my Reddit account! I meant to say Hungary, not Germany!

  14. Bruno Verrari
    20th July 2019, 8:52

    A good idea!!!
    Retire shameless Magnussen, too – he’d not be missed either!

  15. Grosjean stated the laps to the grid felt great. All I need to master now is driving in the pits & the laps after the start.

  16. I don’t see Ocon in F1 next year. At Mercedes, Russel will get that seat before Ocon. I can see Mercedes releasing Ocon from his contract to go to a midfield team, the only one possible seems Haas. But I more see Ocon in formula E like Werhlein. I don’t think many teams will change this years drivers lineups for next year, too many changes were done this year, and teams will look for continuity in preperation before 2021 car design changes.

  17. Haas desperately needs a safe pair of hands, these two in a nice day are welcome but most of the time they fk it up badly. Ocon could be a great adition, but even Paul Di Resta could be doing more for them. If Alonso is bored they could pick him too if money isnt an issue.

    1. K-Magś statistics the last year acually isnt that bad. His poor performance has been down to HAAS not getting the full package to work.

      Meanwhile, Ocon retired with a history of clashing with his teammate. You could blame Perez, but it was a worse situation the HAAS is in now if you are looking at the battles between teammates.

      Alonso, Yeah.. Lets bring that hell into a team that is fighting for stability.

      HAAS best bet is to get their drivers under control.

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