"Safety car came at exactly the wrong time" for Grosjean in Brazil
F1 News
- Nicolás Quarles van Ufford
After getting both cars in the top 10 during qualifying, Haas were once again left empty-handed on Sunday, with Romain Grosjean explaining the safety car came out at "exactly the wrong time" for him as he dropped from seventh to 13th.
It's been a very tough second half of the season for Haas, scoring points just once since the German Grand Prix back in July when Magnussen finished ninth in Russia.
Last weekend in Brazil, the American side seemed to have re-found their form as both cars qualified in the top 10 again. As has often been the case for the team, however, the race pace was nowhere near as good as the qualifying pace.
"We were doing the race of our life, we were hanging on in there in P7 with a car that doesn't deserve that," Grosjean reflected.
"We were doing an amazing job and then the safety car fell at exactly the wrong time for us. The tires at the restart were just tired from a long stint.
"We knew we could go to the end, but then Sainz pushed me wide at the restart into turn two. I'm not very happy about that. We pushed the car to the limit today, it just wasn't our time."
Haas also reported MGU-K problems for Grosjean during the race, which was one of the reasons he dropped off from the places within the points. Teammate Kevin Magnussen, who was taken out by Daniel Ricciardo at the start of the race, did well to recover to P11.