Haas go with Magnussen's spec over Grosjean for Spa

Haas have confirmed that the team will revert both Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean's cars to an updated spec, siding with the Dane's results after running split specs ahead of Formula 1's summer break.

The American team have been baffled by the VF-19's tendency to see race pace nosedive in 2019, which has left them languishing in ninth place in the constructors' championship.

Grosjean has particularly struggled, only managing to score points in two of the first 12 races, and the Frenchman requested his car return to the season-starting spec in order to solve his concerns.

He took an eighth-place finish in Germany running the old spec, but with Magnussen one place better, Haas have decided to keep faith with their upgrades.

A team statement confirmed: "The data gathered from this three-race, car-to-car comparison has framed the spec of the Haas VF-19s for Spa, which will be a refinement of the spec Magnussen used in Germany and Hungary."

Explaining the decision, Haas team principal Guenther Steiner hopes that the move will bring an upturn in Haas' fortunes.

"For Spa we will go with the upgraded car, which we ran at Hockenheim," Steiner said.

"We've learned quite a bit out of it and tried to improve the car by changing some of the components. Both cars will be the same spec, and hopefully we can still learn more about it."

Steiner said that the current iteration of the VF-19 may be the one that sees out the season, with Haas already looking at getting their 2020 car ready to hit the ground running.

He said: "The focus has already switched, partly, to the 2020 car.

"We need to see what we can come up with in the wind tunnel, with the small developments we do there for the 2019 car, and if we bring any upgrade kits. We don't know yet."

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