Romain Grosjean gets a ton of radio air time on race weekends, his complaining about the brakes on his Haas are well documented but for some reason the team is struggling to provide him ‘anchors’ with which he can feel comfortable.
During the Azerbaijan Grand Prix he was again fuming and asked of his race engineer: “I ask you one thing, Gary. If the car becomes dangerous because of the braking, stop me. It’s going now.”
The answer from the pit wall was: “Understood. Alright temps are getting hot so let’s try and lift and coast for a while.”
After the race the Frenchman did not provide a quote to his team for their post race press release, highly unusual behaviour for any driver. He finished 13th.
Sources close to Grosjean say he is highly frustrated with the situation and believes that not enough is being done by the American outfit to sort out the brake issues that has been plaguing him since last year.
After the race Grosjean was interviewed by Canal Plus and at first it appeared he was not going to say anything, “There are no comments to make.”
But then added, “It was catastrophic from the beginning to the end of the weekend and there was not a moment when there was a ray of hope.”
“We have to ask ourselves the right questions and find the problems. You can not have six sessions on a weekend and have a problem every time. It becomes dangerous. I was even afraid for my safety for a while. It’s gone too far.”
The Frenchman is also feeling victimised by the FOM directors who he believes are singling him out by broadcasting his messages far too often.
He said, “Everyone is saying things [on team radio], and when I’m saying things, it’s just for the team, it’s not for the outside world. It’s our internal business if I have rear locking and front locking, or whatever.”
“I’ve been broadcast much more than others and I’m pretty sure others have been swearing and not being happy sometimes. I just feel that they have been a bit unfair and I’m tired,” he added.
The problem that is afflicting Grosjean is also being experienced on the other side of the garage with Kevin Magnussen, but the Dane is less verbose about the problem.
However, after finishing seventh in Baku he did say, “The car’s been handling well all weekend – there’s just been some issues with brakes.”
The team is obviously aware of the brake woes, with team principal Guenther Steiner saying after the race in Baku, ” I hope, in a few more races, we’ll forget about talking about brakes and just use them like everybody else.”
“As a team we need to get on top of that, and we will. Then we can be consistently in the points with two cars. That’s our aim,” added Steiner.
When asked to expand on what is being done to reach a solution, the team was not forthcoming with any new information regarding the matter.