Tag: Haas F1 Team

2017 Monaco Grand Prix qualifying – Romain Grosjean Shines!

Romain Grosjean qualified 8th for the Monaco Grand Prix. The Haas  car performed well despite a very near miss by Grosjean when he spun at Mirabeau during the second stage of qualifying.

Both Grosjean and the Haas car performed well. the car also performed well for Kevin Magnussen. KMags was on an absolute flier during Q2 when he was blocked on track by none other than the….. Languishing Lewis Hamilton. As a result, Magnussen will start the race in P13.

If ever there was an opportunity for the Haas F1 Team to campaign two cars in a third stage of qualifying, it was today.  The cars of  Force India driven by Sergio Perez and the Toro Roso car of Carlos Sainz both out paced the Haas machine of Grosjean. This keeps Haas third in that pecking order behind the leaders. But the car has out performed most fans expectations. Maybe I’ll read about brake problems, but I’ve not heard a peep of the “B” word…

Regarding Lewis……

I don’t think the problem was the car. He seemed to be over inputting everything. The oversteer had him sideways. And all of that vertical slip is time…. and if piled up in heaps. He knows this track as well as anyone. His teammate was first after the Ferrari’s. Lewis can tend to be a bit of emotional about things at times while in the cockpit. That emotion generally serves him well. We’ve seen Lewis tear up the field from the back of the grid. But no one does that at Monaco…

Regarding Pole…. Kimi Raikkonen was brilliant. 4/100’s of a second separate the first 3 cars of Raikkonen, Vettel, and Bottas. The Ferrari’s were delivering top performance for their drivers. Sebastian Vettel was grabbing all of the attention before qualifying. He, Like Hamilton, have a storied record at Monaco, but only has one win in 2011. Hamilton has won the Monaco Grand Prix twice, in 2008 and last years 2016 race.

As you may recall, Hamilton;s 2016 victory was tainted with the controversy of Justin Bieber.  Upon taking his magnum of victory Campaign, he gave the first sip to Bieber. The 2017 Monaco Grand Prix promises to be a Bieber Free Event… as Lewis has no shot at a victory. His best hope is for attrition at the front of the field.

But for the Haas F1 team? They are in a good position to score double points.There will be some failures in front of Magnussen.  He has had better than averages race starts and has been faster than his team mate at times. With some luck and effective strategy, the Haas team can see some success at the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix.

 

2017 Bahrain Grand Prix – Post Race

Sebastian Vettel has won the 2017 Bahrain Grand Prix in fantastic fashion. His 6.5 second gap to the second place car of Lewis Hamilton enjoyed the benefit of a 5 second penalty against Hamilton. But none the less, Vettel far out performed his team mate Kimi Raikkonen. The bells of Maranello may be ringing for Vettel, but I think Kimi’s head is ringing, along with that of Valtteri Bottas.

Valtteri Bottas took his first ever Formula 1 pole yesterday. The Finn was flying high and redeemed his unforgivable error of spinning under caution in China. But by the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix he was clearly delegated to the second driver position in the AMG Mercedes stable. Bottas out qualified the 3 time world champion and Hamilton was hearty in his recognition of the fact.  But fighting under anger, Hamilton demonstrates a pace that can match.

Towards the end of the race, a trailing Hamilton,  chased Bottas down, was given the pass under team orders, and beat Bottas in the race by nearly 14 seconds.

As Hamilton and Vettel battle at the front for the top step of the podium, their seconds languished nearly 20 seconds behind, (with penalty applied), battling for the scraps of the podium.

Romain Grosjean gets the Mailman award from the Haas F1 Fan journal. His 9th place finish delivered 4 points to the team! This gives the team a total of 8 points and places them 7th in the F1 constructors championship.

The day did not go so well for the junior Haas driver, Kevin Magnussen. The young Dane started in the 20th position and retired on lap 9 and was the first of the race. The commentary on NBC broadcast during the race was that the failure was due to the MGU-K. The MGU-K is essentially an electric motor that mechanically connects to the engines main crank shaft. That motor can be used as a drag component, which also generates electricity, or as an electric motor, which assists the main engine crank and helps spin the the turbo charged combustion engine.

Magnussens MGU-K failed… KMags was done.

From there on the show was all about Vettel and Hamilton. Romain Grosjean’s race was never really threatened. We can just hope that MGU-K unit failure in the #20 car was a one off. At no time during the race did we hear concern from the Haas team over Grosjean’s MGU-K.

 

The Scuderia Ferrari is leading the Formula 1 Championship by 13 points, who’da thunk it?

But this is the Haas F1 Journal…

The Haas cars are running those same Ferrari engines.  KMag’s MGU-K aside, we’re optimistic.

 

so WELL DONE Romain Grosjean and the Haas F1 Team.

We’ll see you all on April 27th in Sochi.

Happy Easter All!

 

 

2017 SEASON 2

The 2017 Formula 1 racing season is upon us, and the second for the Haas F1 Team. Ten teams are gathered in Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix.

Kevin Magnussen has joined Romain Grosjean as the second Haas F1 driver. I think KMags will be fantastic. He is equally if not more aggressive than his predecessor and has demonstrated better race day judgement.  There is not much we can talk about with the drivers. Their numbers and on track performance will say it all.

Roman Grosjean is easy to like and I believe still the best driver on the Haas F1 team. Esteban Gutierrez was a built choice that came along with the 2016 deal with Ferrari. Haas did not have much choice in that seat position. I believe Guiteeriez cost the team some points, but not any  positions in the teams 8th place in the 2016 Formula 1 Constructors Championship, with 29 points. The Toro Rosso F1 Team finished ahead of them in 7th place with 63 points.  No driver could have made a difference of 34 points.

I think Kevin Magnussen will prove to be the difference in 2017. I’m expecting the fight for points to be difficult, and the margins between team totals to be closer. When the margins are tight you bring in a closer, and KMags will prove to be the difference on that side of the garage and I do expect at least one dual points race. KMags is the closer!

The 2017 version of the Haas F1 car carries the VF17 nomenclature. VF stands for Very first and was originally used on their very first car for the 2016 season, the VF16. I guess Gene liked the sound of the name or just didn’t care, so we got the VF17. Next year we’ll probably get the VF18…

The Haas VF17 is striking.

Silver gunmetal Metallic Grey is featured. they are drawing from the same color pallet as last year, which is also the same for their NASCAR team. I was not a huge fan of last
years livery, through it did grow on me.    By the end of the 2016 season we had all become accustomed to the car. If you’ll recall, white started out as the predominating color and somewhere along the line it went to silver. Now here we are at a darker gray, and I really like it. I don’t like the black along the bottom of any car. The details of the car become increasing more difficult to see on TV with dark cars. I was aghast with the all black McLaren car with the splash of a red, the Nike swoop.

So I like the 2017 Haas F1 livery, but I do not love it. The dark gray is very close to that of the 2014 Sauber. Hands raised, who else thought “Sauber” when they saw the 2017 Haas car?

Haas does not sell a full range of automobiles to this world wide market, like Mercedes,  they’re selling C-N-C Milling Machines. Haas Automation has very little room for change in their color scheme. Moving away from the traditional color pallet does not serve the marketing of Haas Automation in any way.

Our expectations for future cars should be soundly set regarding the the color of any additional Haas cars. It would take a complete re-branding of Haas Automation to deep metallic Shelby Blue to give me the car I want. So I’ll stick with Red, grey and black. As long as that goose keeps laying golden eggs, I’m happy with gray cars.  It also means we’re safe from pink ones too.

The performance of the 2017 car is… eh, we don’t know. No one knows. Testing helps us break the field down into class sizable chunks. But so much can change throughout the season, and it does. The Haas F1 Team has proven that they can match any other team on the grid when it comes to “race day management”. And it is that overall management aspect which Gene Haas deliverd from day one that allowed him to take advantage of opportunities when they appeared. I highly suspect that the Renault Team will be at the front of the pack within one year. So the way I see it, the beginning of the year is the best opportunity the Haas Team will have to steal some points early.

Even towards the end of the 2016 season, the Mclaren’s were responsible for some of those 10th place finishes, which kept the Haas team from the points. the Haas team finished in 11th place, EIGHT times in 2016. There were other teams with at least a couple of 10th place finishes; Williams, Force India. But no one had more 11th place finishes than Haas F1….. yea us

 

The Renault F1 Team will be a formidable threat to Haas. In many ways this is like the first car from the Renault Team. Last years car was an homogenization of a chassis designed for a Mercedes Engine matched with a Renault power unit. It all depends on that Renault engine. The 2016 Ferrari  engines in those Haas cars did prove reliable. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I believe brakes were a bigger cause of race retirements than anything else… Brakes are technical and we’ll discuss that at another time. But with the demise of the Manor F1 Team, Haas has no one that they can really “kick around”. Every other team on the grid has strong backing and can provide competitive performance on race day

This is how Gary Anderson from Autosport weights the performance for the teams after testing… (he used his method of adjusting for variables like fuel load, tire type etc…

ADJUSTED LAP TIMES
1 Ferrari 1m19.202s
2 Mercedes 1m19.555s
3 Renault 1m20.146s
4 Red Bull 1m20.353s
5 Williams 1m20.876s
6 Sauber 1m21.374s
7 Haas 1m21.818s
8 Force India 1m22.059s
9 Toro Rosso 1m22.156s
10 McLaren 1m22.448s

What this indicates is a performance boost for the Ferrari teams.  Toro Rosso has jumped to Renault power while Force India has remained with Mercedes power.

So, who knows….. My prediction, the team finishes 8th again. This is going to be a much harder fought 8th place for the American car.

 

 

 

 

2016 United States Grand Prix

 The 2016 United States Grand Prix what’s the first home race for the Haas F1 Team, and fans were excited. There were record crowds on hand at Circuit of the Americas. And it was obvious that America was glad to have a Formula 1 team again.

So the Haas Team went into to qualifying with hot very high hopes, especially after their best ever qualifying session in Japan just two weeks previously. But as it would work out it was not a very good qualifying session for the team. Grosjean did not advance out of the first qualifying session and started 17th on the grid. His Junior root teammate, Esteban Gutierrez, made it into Q2 and started 14th on the grid.

Both Haas cars had a very good race start. By the end of the first lap Grosjean have moved up from 17th to 14th Place. And Gutierrez worked his way up to 10th from 14th.

After two pit stops Grosjean had worked his way up to 12th place. Gutierrez would retire from the race because of brake failures. It was a very disappointing to watch, especially considering what a good race he was running.

With mechanical failures, front runners Max Verstappen in his Red Bull and Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari would not finish the race. This moved Romain Grosjean up to 10 place, which is where he finished the race. Grosjean earned the Haas team a single first home Grand Prix for that 10th place finish. It was an extremely positive an exciting day for the team and their fans.

Next next week we are on to Mexico for the home Grand Prix of Esteban Gutierrez. Things are looking up for the Haas F1 team. We’ll see you in Mexico

 

2016 Italian Grand Prix – Pre Race

Esteban Gutiérrez has qualified 10th for the 2016 Italian Grand Prix. He is the first driver to take a Haas F1 car into the third qualifying round for any race.

The team rolled out a special wing for the Italian Grand Prix.  The leading edge of the wing is shaped in the form of a “W”.

Mercedes is utilizing a wing with a leading edge shaped like an elongated V. But the Haas design doubles this form factor in a waving fashion.  Visually the two wings look different from the standard flat plank the Haas team and most others run. But what is the advantage of the wave in the wing? How does this help the car go faster? Does it provide more or less downforce then a standard wing? These are the many questions I was asking, and not a single NBC analyst dared to tackle the design impact, including Steve Matchette. I was disappointed.

The new wing on the Haas F1 car has two intended purposes; greater downforce and better stability in high speed turns. Down force is not the only application of Bernoulli’s principle at work here, and not what Haas and AMG Mercedes are chasing with their designs.

Building curves into the wing effectively makes it longer. Just as a shoe lace looks shorter while in the package, it stretches out when you unwind it. In the same way both Haas and Mercedes have done this. Adding a second wing is an alternate approach to lengthening the wing. So why the wave? Wouldn’t a wave   increase the drag? Well yes is does to an extent. And it creates vertical down force. But the teams are chasing another aeronautical dynamic, the vertical component of lift.

The vertical component of lift is what allows air planes to turn. Ailerons on the wings is how the pilot controls this force, along with their rudder and elevator. As the pilot turns his wheel to the left, the aileron on the right drops down, which causes the wing to go up. The lift which raises the plane can be directed sideways and cause the plane to turn. To assist in turning an airplane, some wings are not flat but have an upward bend built into it, or dihedral. Remember that a race car wing is like an airplane wing, but upside down . So the AMG Mercedes uses a single bend inverted design or dihedral. The Haas wing has 2 bends on each side, polyhedral.

So as the Haas and AMG Mercedes cars are driving in a straight line there are downward forces coming off of the wing, perpendicular to the wing surface. The AMG Mercedes wing spreads it’s down force in the shape of an umbrella. The downward forces on the Haas wing spread in an even more lateral or sideways direction. As the car enters a turn the down forces on the back of the car will become asymmetrical. The vertical component of lift can be used to help get the car around the corner. I suspect that these aerodynamics are only beneficial at high speeds. So at a track with high speed turns, like Monza, the benefits can be realized. On a slower track the beneficial vertical down force may be negligible and drag inducing. It would require a conversation with the design team to fully understand the aerodynamic nuances… wouldn’t that be cool! I digress…

So the new Haas wing is exciting. The car is faster and lookes very stable…

From the beginning I’ve been touting the reliability of the Haas Team… reliability… race craft… over and over. Well today Esteban Gutierrez essentially addressed my point in an interview with Will Buxton, and i paraphrase, ” since we’ve been consistent we’ve then been able to focus on things that will help us”. The reliability s paying off. After all of those 11th place finishes, he has broken into the top 10.

Grosjean qualified 12th but will start 17th due to a 5 place penalty for his transmission swap. Yes I call it a transmission, not a gearbox. My 5 speed Honda Accord has a gearbox!

Again it comes down to the start. Esteban and Romain have both had good starts and escaped turn 1 unscathed. Let’s believe the same is going to happen. Dare I say they could have not one but two cars in points? I believe Esteban Gutierrez will score his first points for Haas F1. And if Grosjean can manage his tires, I believe he can move up. Points are not out of the question for both drivers. The car’s were especially fast in qualifying. The Team did not post a time for Gutierrez until the very end of Q3, which concerned me. But I believe they were conceding the effort. P10 puts him on the outside of the track and a safer vantage point into turn 1. It was a safe play…

Can the team maintain it’s advantage throughout the race? Have the Haas cars improved? It sure looks like it. A single mistake by a competitor could make the difference. The Haas Team has not made any significant mistakes on race day. This is going to be an exciting and fast race.

Go Haas F1 Team!!!!

It’s Monza… and the Americans are in the house!!!

 

 

 

2016 Belgian Grand Prix – Pre Race

Half time is over… The kickoff to Formula 1’s second half is just hours away. We’ve all had time to eat a meatball sandwich, use the facilities, catch a smoke, even run out for more beer.  Kickoff is officially at 8 AM EST August 28th, tomorrow morning, at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

The Haas F1 Team has not failed to disappoint at any point of its development. The team is fairly well seated in the F1 constructors championship in 8th position with 28 points. They follow McLaren who holds 42 points and leads Renault in 9th position with 6 points. McLaren and Honda are not relenting to develop their engine for this year. They are in a points battle with Toro Rosso who only leads McLaren by 3 points, with 45.   So it was not surprising to learn that the Haas team will commit all new development activities to the car they will campaign for the 2017 season. As the emphasis on the teams opportunities fade, an opportunity for the drivers emerges. They can define a meaningful purpose to the racing… now it’s personal!!!

The 5 position grid penalty on Esteban Gutierrez can be seen in two ways. As Tevye (Father character in “Fiddler On The Roof”) would say… in his deep baritone voice…

On one hand, he is a good boy! He does not break my car, too much. He does not earned his keep but,  he also has finished 11th place… 4 times! He does not embarrass me! I sell lots of hats in Mexico, and I like him. He’s a good boy!

On the other hand… I’m not so sure. The accident in Australia, Alonso could have been killed.  Now a 5 spot penalty… for what.. forgetting you are in a race car, on a race track, and there are other cars? We shall see…

But on the other hand… he has been doing better than my other boy… but still no points…

Starting from 18th position may be too difficult for Gutierrez to over come. Even if he can pick up a few positions at the start, it seems that points are an unrealistic expectation for him. I sure hope I’m wrong. and I might be.

Drivers are complaining that Pirelli’s tire pressure requirements are too stringent. Many feel it is making the tires too hard, resulting in higher temperatures and premature degradation. In this motorsport article, Jensen Button explains his frustrations with the tires. It’s worth reading, but not me repeating! 🙂

But the tire pressure could play into Haas’s hands. Now I admit my logic may be a bit loosely fitted, but all indicators are in the teams favor. In a fantastically written article on the Haas F1 Team web site, Romain Grosjean says this,

“The car was fine in qualifying. We made a good step before the summer break, so I’m more happy with the car. There are still a few things we can improve but, generally, it’s not a bad place to be after qualifying. For the race, I don’t think we’ll be as challenged as some of the other teams. Hopefully, we can have a good, aggressive strategy and try to make it work to get some points.”

Romain does not tell us what their advantage is, but they definitely must feel that they have one. Execution of their strategy will need to be perfect for the team to over perform. The combined design and execution of the race strategy could significantly improve the Haas Team’s performance, and it’s their greatest strength.

At the beginning the 2016 season the Haas team had no experience with their new car. The team had never worked together. Their front wing was shit and Esteban could not find the bathroom. Yet Haas F1 scored in three of their first 4 races. Perhaps I’m beating a dead horse, but Gene Haas bring race craft! It does not matter if he’s racing Chevy modifieds on a  dirt track, wrenching on Indy cars, or writing history in the NASCAR record books, he knows what he’s doing.

If ever there was an opportunity to win a race on strategy and execution, it will be the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix.

Both Romain’s and Esteban’s primary purpose, in life tomorrow, is to get a great race start and through turn 1 unscathed. The unscathed part is the most important thing. Jumping ahead then having to pit is not really jumping ahead… so… you listening Esteban? For Esteban this race is a bit of a trial. For Romain, an opportunity.

Romain Grosjean is starting in 11th position. The Haas car does not have the giddy up to run with Williams or Force India. And as mentioned before, the McLaren will only get faster. Attrition at the front of the pack never hurt the feelings of the mid pack contenders, and if that happens Romain will be the first to benefit.

No one has any idea how the race will play out. We’ve seen similar tire life expectancies from both the medium ands and soft tire compounds. But the Ardennes is taking its tole. The heat is tearing and blistering the tires in rates disproportionate to previous races. In that gap is where the fortunes lie for the Haas F1 team. An opportunity will present itself and they will be ready!

I do believe that Romain Grosjean will score points.  Esteban, 11th position? For the 5th time? Seems reasonable.

and on a personal note…
“If I were a rich man”… twitter follower @EauRouger  would we watching this race from La Source. Keep fighting Chester!

 

2016 German Grand Prix – Pre-race

Esteban Gutiérrez qualified 11th for the German Grand Prix. He lines up behind the Mercedes powered Force India of Sergio Perez. In P10 and to Gutierrez’s right front is the Mercedes powered Williams of Felipe Massa. Behind him are the Honda powered McLarens of Button in 12th and Alonso in 13th.

Gutierrez out qualified both McClarens, both Renaults, both toro Rosso’s, both Manors, both Saubers and…. drumroll… his teammate romain Grosjean. Grosjean’s 15th position in qualifying was rewarded with a further 5 grid bump to the back due. A spin in free practice 3 damaged his gearbox (transmission). Per Formula 1 rules, the Haas f1 Team  Grosjean specifically, were penalized 5 grip spots for the swap. The penalty may be more than Grosjean can overcome to earn points.

Esteban Gutierrez has been showing steady improvement throughout the year. He retired from the first and second race. But he as since completed the rest of the races to this point. After 11 races Esteban Gutierrez has completed the last 9 races. Of his 9 finishes he’s got three 11th places finishes, which are his best in a Haas car. Spain, Montreal and Austria he was knocking at the door but denied. the car is proving reliable. He has out performed his teammate Grosjean in 6 of the last 7 races. Esteban is increasing his value to the team with each drive. Gunther Steiner, Haas f1 Team Principal, stated that the team will shift it’s development focus to the 2017 chassis. As long as Gutierrez is finishing races he is doing his job. But as his performance demonstrates a trajectory forward, he makes Gene Haas’s driver decision with each race. The less Haas has to worry about driver lineup provides more stability for the development platform.

And after the German Grand Prix we can expect the F1 silly season of rumors to begin. I’ll throw out my suspicions about the Haas driver lineup.

Does Romain Grosjean have Renault dreams? I’ve written previously that Renault would be his dream job. As the entire season is about to pop like a toaster over… we could see some musical chairs…

Assume Haas likes what Gutierrez is doing and he continues along his trajectory, I think Esteban stays. Renault had to adapt the Lotus Chassis to fit their engine. But next year will be a ground up design entirely new, entirely Renault. Grosjean has proven himself a valuable development driver. Renault could use him next year and I think Romain would love it… maybe i’m wrong. But i don’t think i am.

So as the silly season commences i’ll be thinking about Grosjean’s seat. Indications are that McClaren may be ready to break ties with Jensen Button… Bang! If Alonso leaves F1 .

So there is a little mind blurb that’s been building. Maybe I’m wrong, they keem Grosjean and axe Esteban… if we can stay pat, and Romain is happy, then the team is better off. Esteban Gutierrez is tired of 11th place finishes. But this time he’s got an 11th place start. If ever he was in a position to score points it’s now. His start will be critical… I think we will see Haas score points in Germany and Esteban will further his case that he is the right guy at the right time!

 

2016 Austrian Grand Prix – Race Final

Esteban Gutiérrez recently outperformed his teammate Romain Grosjean at the Spanish, Monaco and Canadian Grand Prix’s. Both in Spain and Monaco Esteban finished 11th, nearly capturing his first points for the Haas F1 Team. Though he did fall behind his team mate at the European Grand Prix, we’ve been seeing a surge in Esteban’s performance. And that dominance continued through qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix. Esteban Gutiérrez started 11th while Romain Grosjean started 13th.

At the end of the day Gutiérrez finished where he started, 11th. But Romain Grosjean again brought the Ferrari powered Haas car back into points by finishing 7th.  The Haas F1 team is firmly planted in the 8th constructors championship standing with 28 points and only 4 points behind Mclaren. And Jenson Button surely gave his Mclaren team a lift with his 6th place finish. The silver lining for the Haas Team is that both of their cars finished today. Fernando Alonso alone has as many DNF’s as the entire Haas team with 3 total. Button had two DNF’s himself. As the Haas Team pushes their cars harder towards the front there will be an impact on reliability. But this is the payoff we are looking to capitalize on, and reliability can be what turns those three Gutiérrez P11 finishes into points.

But for our man Romain Grosjean, what can we say… he just delivers. He spent half of the Austrian Grand Prix fighting off the Force India of Carlos Sainz and the Williams of Valtteri Bottas. The Haas car was giving Romain the horses he needed to fight the two Mercedes powered cars. Grosjean never gave his opponents a clean opportunity to pass and was at times threatening the Mclaren of Button in front of him. And because he was consistently less than one second behind Button, Grosjean never lost a DRS zone advantage. So he stayed pace with the competitors behind him .

So the Austrian Grand Prix is a good start to what promises to be a very busy July. From Austria the teams travel to Silverstone for the British Grand Prix on July 10th. Two weeks later on July 24th the teams meet at the Hungaroring for the Hungarian Grand Prix. A week later on July 31st is the German Grand Prix. With the Austrian race being the first of four races this month, the teams will be looking forward to their summer break in August.

So onto Silverstone for the Haas F1 Team and their fans. Our goal is to outperform McClaren on their home turf and close the four point gap with them. From there we set our sights on the Toro Rosso team, currently only leading the Haas team by only 8 points…

There are three more races until the summer break. A constructors championship goal of 7th before the break is not unreasonable. Their 8th place position in the constructors championship is safe with Renault lagging behind by 22 points in 9th place. So not only has the team already over performed beyond expectations, they’ve do so with little threat of losing their 8th place standing. With three races remaining before the half way point, the team is in a position to make a 4 point gain on McClaren and go into the break in 7th place! That may be a shade optimistic, but the luck factor does seem to play huge in F1. And considering how experienced Gene Haas is at running a race team, the luck might just continue.

But for today… Well done Haas F1 Team!!! Way to Represent!!!

 

2016 European Grand Prix – Final

The European Grand Prix was held in Azerbaijan. It is here where this posting for the Haas F1 Journal picks up….

Azerbaijan is a small country on the west coast of the Caspian sea, you know Europe. To the west Azerbaijan shares a border with Armenia. As a kid I feld weird because no one in my school ever heard of Armenia, and my mother’s parents both came from Armenia. My father’s parents both came from England and I inherited his skin tone, so I look European. But never in the history of my family or the entire Armenian race have they even been considered European. Here is a little video clip from my mother regarding the “Azerbaijan in Europe” fiasco… Select that link and you will hear Veronica has to say about that!

The race… The race did not fail to disappoint. I expected a boring race and those expectations were met. The course looks like a Google maps route for the pizza delivery guy. The track was divided into two sections, old and new. the old section had that iconic castle and a few nice turns.. the new part of the track consisted of many right hand turns. the racing was almost like stop light to stop light. the twitter feed during the race was wildfire because people were so bored from the race.

The one thing that I noticed were the stark streets. There were relatively no fans. The camera’s would pan as they followed cars around the track and there were no bystanders. No kids in trees. the race looked like it was being held on a movie set. During the race I stated on twitter that the race had an “erie” feeling to it. We later learned that the FIA hung backdrops over ugly buildings. these backdrops were painted to look like beautiful homes, and on TV it worked.

So my attitude towards this race is not healthy to begin with.

Romain Grosjean re-established himself at the team leader by out qualifying and finishing Esteban Gutierrez. Grosjean qualified 13th while his team mate Gutierrez qualified 16th. they finished 11th and 15th respectively.

There is nothing special about this race worth noting, and that is what makes this race special. With a workman attitude, the Haas F1 Team has brought home both cars for another complete race. Their mechanical reliability has stood up well. AMG Mercedes only has two DNF’s (Did Not Finish)  this year. Haas F1 has three. Ferrari has also had three DNF’s with a DNS (Did Not Start) also thrown in, which is worse than a DNF. So that puts Haas second in terms of reliability with Williams and tied with Red Bull who has 2 DNF’s and a DNS.  The Haas F1 Teams reliability is up there with the most experienced teams in the history of F1. Their results are not very shiny and it has been a while since we’ve seen points.

The Haas F1 Team is on it’s first time around the F1 carrousel . They’ve got a lot to learn as they collect new data for every track they visit. But every race they are bringing it!  Let’s get out of this place and head to Spiegel Austria!

2016 Canadian Grand Prix – Race Final

The North American continent got it’s first opportunity to watch America’s formula 1 team in action at the Canadian Grand Prix.

The Haas F1 Team approached this race with a very aggressive strategy. Neither the Haas not Lotus team brought soft tires to Canada, both brought only Softs and Ultrasofts, no supersofts. The main difference is that Lotus has 5 sets of those soft tires with the remaining 8 strictly super softs. The Haas team brought only 3 sets of soft tires and 10 sets of Ultrasofts. It seems the Haas team was willing to risk tire degradation for the payoff of better grip. But at the end of the it just seems that the Haas Ferrari is not quite fast enough.

Gutierrez and Grosjean qualified 14th and 15th respectively. and again they finished 13th and 14th respectively. The young Mexican sensation out performed his French rival when the pair finished the race 13th and 14th, with Grosjean being beat out again by his team mate.

The most exciting part of this race was not exciting at all. The team again finished the race with both cars. Neither were in points but… both cars finished the race, again! Consider this run of races the dog days of the freshman schedule. The team has shaken out the car. They have scored points and the taste of points is an easy one to get use to. But let us not forget, we are still in the first year. There have been no mistakes in the pits so far. No ground seems to have been lost due to any strategy mistakes. The car just needs to go faster… Push Boys!!!

My race reports have not been very comprehensive, and Azerbaijan will not be much different. The next race is the least exciting on the schedule, The European Grand Prix…