Italian GP: Driver Preview Quotes - Haas

DRIVER PREVIEW QUOTES - HAAS F1 TEAM

Romain Grosjean - “It’s the characteristics of the track (that allow you to reach such high speeds), primarily a long straight line with a chicane followed by another long straight line. Everyone goes for low down force levels. That’s where we go fast in a straight line. It’s a great track - a temple of speed.

(Overtaking is) not as straightforward as a drag race. You still lose down force when you follow another car out of the low-speed corners. It’s one of those races where you can have a lot of overtaking, a lot of action. It’s always interesting to see how it plays out with the big slipstreams.”

I’m very much looking forward to racing there again. The atmosphere is crazy in Monza. The Tifosi, the fans - they’re just great. The track is in the middle of a park. It’s like nowhere else. There are so many people coming and watching, cheering for the drivers and, of course, for Ferrari. The atmosphere is electric. I love it.”

Esteban Gutierrez - “(Monza’s) interesting because you have a lot of high-speed sections, mainly straight-line sections with very low down force, and this is directly affecting the braking of the slow-speed corners. When you have a long period of time when you’re braking, obviously the down force is important, but the fact that you get very low down force on this track, you need to cope with the car in different ways and you need to adapt the setup for that.

(The overtaking opportunities are) basically, everywhere. You have Turn 1 and you have Turn 4, as well as before the Parabolica. It’s a track that provides a lot of overtaking. It’s one of the classics. The people, the atmosphere, the Italians, Ferrari fans, and we’re using Ferrari engines, so it’s great to come there and enjoy nice support from the Italians, especially for me being part of Ferrari last year directly as a third driver put me very close to Italy.

I won a few championships there - two championships actually, Formula BMW and GP3. I remember exactly how it was. It was actually with a qualifying lap because it was enough to get one point from getting the pole position and that was enough for me to win the championship, so it was a very special moment. It comes always from Monza - a special place for me to get there and get that feeling. My favourite part of Monza is probably the Ascari corner. It’s a triple chicane, very fast turning in, very late braking. It’s actually one of my favourite corners of the calendar.”

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Article Posted By: Amy Hawk
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