Both Haas drivers to run Melbourne-spec F1 car in Russia

Both Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen will use Haas’ Melbourne-spec Formula 1 car for this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.

The American squad has been testing various aerodynamic configurations in recent months as it looks to get to the bottom of its performance-related issues which have hampered its 2019 campaign.

Both drivers will now switch onto the same-spec car Haas ran at the season-opener in Melbourne, with slight adjustments to compensate for a tweaked sidepod design.

“We bring the Melbourne-spec, both cars on the Melbourne-spec,” Haas team principal Guenther Steiner told media on Thursday in Sochi.

“It was planned for a long time. We now have a configuration that we do not have to change the sidepods anymore on the car - we figured out that we can change them.

“We have now two aero specs, the old one and the new one and we can interchange them. I think it’s part of our set-up work now but to come here we always planned to run with the Melbourne-spec because it seems to be suiting better in the simulations.”

Steiner is confident his team now understands its problems throughout this year and believes running the same package will only benefit its analysis.

“We are working hard and I think we now have a lot more understanding of what actually happened and what is happening,” he explained.

“At the moment, we are not trying anymore, we know that the drivers feel more confident with this spec and for this track, we need this one. We get a lot better understanding of it and therefore we do this.

“We understand the lack of performance, and comparing the two has helped to get a better understanding. We know how to design it differently but we still need to do that.

“It’s not like you switch on and say ‘now I will do it different and it will be fine’ because you still need to develop what you want.

“We didn’t do this on purpose, so it wasn’t a design thing. It happened and it didn’t work, so now we have to find a solution but we are clear what we have to look for.”

Asked if he feels a solution can be found before the end of the season, Steiner replied: “We do a lot of testing to analyse better where we went wrong but I don’t think we will see a solution to it.

“We will do some testing with some parts over the next races but whether it makes the car a lot better this year, I think we will try to make the best out of the car that we have got, like we have in the last races.”