Bahrain GP: Driver Preview Quotes - Haas

DRIVER PREVIEW QUOTES - HAAS F1 TEAM

Romain Grosjean - “Bahrain last year was pretty special. Of course, coming from Australia where we’d had a bit of luck with the red flag, we had no more expectation going into Bahrain. From the first free practice lap I thought the car’s not too bad. In qualifying we just managed to be P9, which was what we wanted not going into the Q3, which at that time was the top-eight. We knew we had a set of tyres for the race. We had a very aggressive strategy. We had our first ever pit stop in the race - it was then a three-stop race. The car felt good. I was overtaking guys. Before I knew it, I had crossed the line P5. It was not down to luck or anything. It was the pure pace of the car. It was a pretty special race. I still remember having a lot of fun driving the car.

    I love the track in Bahrain. On paper, it doesn’t look like the most exciting one, but driving it is pretty good fun. Big braking - I brake late. I love braking hard and late. It probably explains why my qualifying sessions in 2012 and 2013, I could have done better. The car was pretty good on tyres in the race. It’s hard on tyres as well, but I was good with that, probably another thing that helped. I love racing in Bahrain.

    There’s plenty of places where you can overtake. Basically, turn one is DRS, and going up to Turn 4 is another good place. Down to Turn 8, on the first few laps of the race, is a quick one. Before Turn 11 is a bit more tricky. Even though you’ve got the DRS, it’s a tricky place to overtake. There’s only one corner where you could overtake, but you don’t really want to do it - it’s the last corner, because the guy behind you has the DRS and he’ll just take you back.

    I like Turns 11, 12 and 13, just because there’s a cool flow. If you’ve got a good car, they are the corners where you can enjoy balancing the car. Turns 9 and 10 are pretty tricky. That’s the braking going downhill and there’s a lot of g-forces and front locking, with tricky traction on the exit. That’s the place where you really need to focus.

    Conditions are going to be very different (to China). Bahrain is a very aggressive track with a high temperature. China is a very smooth track with low temperature. Shanghai is front limited, Bahrain is rear limited. They’re two very different circuits. If you look at the first four races of the calendar, if we do well out of those four and manage to get a good consistency, we can then be very hopeful for the rest of the year.”

Kevin Magnussen - “It’s a track with some good braking zones, fast chicanes and medium-speed corners. It’s quite fun.”

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Article Posted By: Amy Hawk
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