In the round-up: Romain Grosjean says Haas have done the best they could with an unco-operative car this year.
What they say
Grosjean praised his team’s attempts to get the best out of the VF-19:
It’s been a tough season for the team but we can’t [ignore] the hard work that everyone’s put in and the good job that everyone’s put on in terms of race team.
So we are always operating the car with best we can. You will never make a racehorse with a donkey but we’ve tried.
Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Social media
Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:
A serious error in today's Formula E race as the safety car was brought in while marshals were still on-track recovering a car. #FE pic.twitter.com/RAMgSRoaoz
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) November 23, 2019
- Find more official F1 accounts to follow in the F1 Twitter Directory
Links
More motor racing links of interest:
Ferrari say they have cleared the air after Brazil collision (Reuters)
"Since last Sunday Mattia and the drivers have spoken every day, as they would normally do anyway, so there was no official summit nor video conference."
Ex-Red Bull junior Ticktum has interest from F1 teams (Autosport)
"If I can't get to F1, I'll probably - unless I get a very good deal in something else - forget motorsport if I'm honest."
The F1 outcast who landed a plum IndyCar ride (Motorsport Week)
Marcus Ericsson: "(IndyCar is) like a big GP2 series in a way. It’s fun. Some weekends one guy would win and the next weekend he could be P15 as he doesn’t get the car right, or the driving right. You have the bumpy, tight street courses, the road courses, the superspeedways, you have the short, bumpy ovals."
Buemi furious at Diriyah Attack Zone placement (e-racing365)
"The problem is the Attack Mode is in the worst place possible, and I kept saying it. You cannot put it on the inside on the exit of a corner. You’re making the speed in that corner much slower."
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Comment of the day
Has Formula E outgrown its street tracks?
Formula E is definitely fun series to follow, but they desperately need to race on permanent circuits. These weak city circuit layouts are getting on my nerves.
Happy to see Vandoorne on podium. He never had a fair chance in F1 when McLaren clearly was on Alonso’s side.
@Huhhii
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José Lopes da Silva
24th November 2019, 0:43
The attack mode makes much more sense than DRS.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th November 2019, 7:44
@José Lopes da Silva I disagree with you on that.
ColdFly (@)
24th November 2019, 8:16
Agree. I see attack mode as a super fast pit-stop.
You lose a few seconds, bur you’ll have overspeed for a limited period when coming out of it.
Jim from US (@jimfromus)
24th November 2019, 1:12
Haas power settings are donkey, mule, old gray mare, …
Radio transcripts:
Grosjean to team: Need more power.
Team response: Switch from D to M.
Bulgarian (@bulgarian)
24th November 2019, 13:48
Lol!!!
Jordi Casademunt (@casjo)
24th November 2019, 1:23
Well, I’ve gotta hand it to Haas, they are working really hard at making a proper racing driver from Grosjean.
ColdFly (@)
24th November 2019, 8:18
Lotus did succeed in turning the donkey into a race horse.
Sideline the donkey one race and it’ll do wonders.
RatSack
24th November 2019, 2:11
Didn’t Haas start the year with a thouroughbread (some might even say a prancing horse) and turn it into a Donkey. It seems all that their trying to make the car better just made things worse, I can’t think of any example of a team failing this badly at in season development.
Stephen Crowsen (@drycrust)
24th November 2019, 17:17
Wasn’t there a time when Romain refused to drive his car if it had upgrades fitted to it? It was something like that. So Haas gave him his “retro-car” at one of the 21 points earning Grands Prix (slightly less than 5% of their income earning occasions) hoping they’d be able to get a lap by lap comparison as to whether the retro-car or the current spec car was fastest … but … didn’t he collide with his team mate? Well, there you go: that was a waste of time. Now the team has to go through this whole process again of building two different cars for the next GP (now almost 10% of their incoming earning occasions) to see if there’s a perceptible difference, and somewhere in the back of their minds is the question of maybe better laptimes on the “downgraded car” is actually more psychological than real.
I did hear a race commentator say that Haas were going down a wrong path in terms of their development of the upgrades that Romain complained about, so maybe it was a good decision to raise the problem with management … but now the car’s “a donkey”? It would have been considerably more helpful if he hadn’t wasted a whole GP trying to prove his point. Maybe the path the designers were going down earlier this year was the right one after all.
Your job, as a professional driver, is to get the best from the vehicle your employer gives you. Also, it isn’t your place to “bag” the company or the car in public, especially if you’re at the bottom end of the points tables.
2020 is going to be a long and painful season at Haas.
J3d89
24th November 2019, 2:17
Exactly grossjean… Haas cannot turn you into a race horse…
Mashiat (@mashiat)
24th November 2019, 6:41
I disagree with COTD. Vandoorne was given plenty of chances, and he didn’t take them. Obviously the team favored Alonso with regards to updates and specs etc. but Vandoorne rarely managed to even get anywhere near a 37 year old F1 driver. And it’s not quite like Vandoorne was a extremely young driver, he was almost 27 by the time he left F1. That’s even older than Kevin Magnussen for example. And even when the team attempted to do a direct evaluation between him and Norris in 2018 with regards to the 2019 seat, it became quite clear that Norris was the quicker of the two. Given the promise of Vandoorne’s speed in the junior formulas, it was perhaps unexpected. But some drivers are probably not cut out for the absolute top level, and only perform when there is little pressure on them, such as the man who succeeded Vandoorne as GP2 champion, Pierre Gasly.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th November 2019, 7:43
@mashiat Well, technically, he was younger at the time of leaving F1 than Kevin Magnussen is now, though. By base age-difference, he’s older by six months and ten days, but younger at the end of last season compared to K-Mag at present.
RB13
25th November 2019, 15:53
@mashiat I think Keith lost the plot a bit this weekend with giving this guy COTD and the caption competition winner.
Jere (@jerejj)
24th November 2019, 7:40
”I think I’ll still have some role with Alfa Romeo, I don’t know what yet, we’ll discuss it in the next months, but the focus will be on IndyCar.”
– He should just leave the Alfa Romeo team for good as the reserve-role has been more or less nothing but redundant for him, and would keep on being that way in the longer-term.
That’s quite a serious error to make a track green again with still marshals working on a stranded car still on track. SC coming in earlier than ideal could lead to a nasty incident or at least a close call.
tonyyeb (@tonyyeb)
24th November 2019, 8:26
Yay, bye bye Ticktum. Nobody, I repeat, nobody in Motorsport will miss you.
UNeedAFinn2Win (@uneedafinn2win)
24th November 2019, 9:52
Yeah, obviously missed the PR classes as part of driver training coming up. Well, missed on the opportunities given as well. On top of that, declaring that you’re in it for the money is not endearing yourself to potential employers at all.
If you are a racer, you race. Just look at Jan Magnussen, at 47, He is taking up Danish tCR for crowds of oh, hundreds I presume. After a 30 year career, he still wanted to race.
Edvaldo
24th November 2019, 15:46
Haas started the year with a car that was even faster than last year’s one.
And now they are the worst team bar Williams.
And worst of all, they were still trying to upgrade the car until recently.
After improving steadily, this disappointment. If they fail to improve from this for next year i can see Gene Haas closing the team for ’21 already.
Ben Rowe (@thegianthogweed)
24th November 2019, 19:40
Last time out, I don’t think they were the worst other than Williams. If they were, Grosjean should have been the driver of the weekend. He was maintaining a points position in his first stint, was 6th when he pitted, then was up as high as 7th later on again when others started pitting for the safety car. This was unlucky timing for him then the MGU-K failed on his car. A points finish was extremely likely without this. However, at other tracks it does seem dreadful.