Grosjean: Barcelona testing masked Haas problems in 2019

Haas driver Romain Grosjean highlights the importance of preseason testing but says a strong showing during the sessions last year masked the problems that would later plague the teams season.

Shrunk from eight days in 2019 to just six in 2020, the importance of completing preseason testing with minimal issues is higher than ever but Grosjean is being cautious not to read too deeply into the results.

“It’s important to get a good first feel of the car," said Grosjean. "You want to feel comfortable in a new car. We’re normally quite effective at knowing quickly if the car is good or not.

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"We’ve also learned a lot from 2019, when testing went well, but the rest of the season not so much. I think issues were masked by the fact that we had been fast in Barcelona at the start of the year.

"Then in some races we were fast but in others not. We’ll use testing to cover as many different scenarios as we can.”

Testing is a learning experience and a chance for teams and drivers to get to grips with the characteristics of their new machinery.

Grosjean added, "Driving it is different and testing, as it says, is done to test a lot of things. In free practice, it is exactly that, practice to get ready for the race.”

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