Why Kevin Magnussen has Haas upgrade over Romain Grosjean in Germany

German GP

Why Magnussen has Haas upgrade over Grosjean in Germany

Haas are trying to fix their issues.

Matthew Scott

Monday 22 July 2019 14:28

Haas will continue to experiment with differing set-ups at the German Grand Prix. Kevin Magnussen will take on new upgrades at Hockenheim, while Romain Grosjean will continue with their season-opening spec.

Grosjean outqualified Magnussen using Australian GP configuration at Silverstone last week, but the experiment didn't make it past the first corner of the race as the Haas drivers collided with each other and retired soon after.

Haas have been at a loss to explain their performance issues so far in 2019, which has routinely seen strong qualifying performances result in scoreless races.

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Team principal Guenther Steiner explained that the search for more downforce is key to their hopes of solving the issues.

He said of the differing strategies: "We decided on this exercise to get data and understand better what the difference between the two cars is, good or bad, then we can see where we can make improvements.

Grosjean, Rich Energy set to remain with Haas in GermanyRead more

"We weren't sure if the update we introduced in Barcelona was better or not. We're running this again in Hockenheim, which is a different type of track with different temperatures – they'll be a lot higher – and, as we all know, we couldn't get a lot of data from the race at Silverstone from either of the cars."

Of running the first-spec car again, Grosjean added: "When we brought the upgrade in Barcelona, I wanted to revert back on the Friday evening. For me, the feeling was not so good from the rear end, especially through medium- and high-speed corners. The feeling hasn’t been good in those corners since then.

"Going back to the Melbourne package, the car felt a lot better in those regions. It shows that something was not working as expected. Now the aero guys are looking into it, but we know it’s been our weakness. Obviously, that launch package has some limitations also. It has less downforce, but it has better stability."