Grosjean: Haas suffering from inherent overheating F1 suspension issue

Romain Grosjean has revealed Haas is suffering from an inherent overheating F1 suspension issue which has blighted its season.

Both Haas cars were eliminated in the first part of qualifying at the Portimao and the American squad has only scored points on two occasions this season.

Speaking after qualifying, Grosjean explained the issue in more detail.

“I can find a tenth maybe but there isn’t much more in the car,” Grosjean said. “We’re struggling with the rear suspension overheating, meaning that the platform, the ride height, keeps changing at the rear. From one lap to the other we can pick up up to 4% of aero balance.

“When it gets hot at the end of third practice you get the ride height and then it cools down – and then you start qualifying with a different one and every lap the rear suspension heats up and the rear ride height changes. Normally we’re struggling a little bit but this weekend the magnitude is quite bigger and we’ve got no idea why.”

Due to the varying ride height levels, Grosjean admits setup adjustments are pure guesswork.

“I feel for my race engineer because they roll the dice and they decide which flap angle we’re going to go on but we never know where it’s going to end up.

“We’ve had the issue all year long but this weekend it has been, for some reason, really exaggerated. So we’re struggling with that. The car is never the same from one lap to the others. We’re not very confident for tomorrow and how it’s going to end.”

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner confirmed the team are trying to fix the issue but still haven’t found a solution.

“We had this issue since the beginning of the year and it took a few races to understand it,” Steiner said. “We tried a few options to cool the system. I don’t know how much difference it makes.

“I don’t know how bad it was today. Sometimes it seems to be working better. We brought some new parts to this race and I guess they don’t work as written on the box. So for sure, we’ll keep on working on it.”