Azerbaijan GP: Driver Preview Quotes - Haas

DRIVER PREVIEW QUOTES - HAAS F1 TEAM

Romain Grosjean - It’s going to be pretty exciting. I think some parts of the circuit are going to be very tight for the wider cars, but some other corners are going to be really nice to drive. Straight-line speed is going to be a bit down. I think it’s going to be a really cool track to drive with these cars – braking late and carrying a lot of speed in the corners, and playing around with some pretty fast corners through the walls.

    I believe there’s always a lot of things you can bring from the past, even when the cars are different. We’ll look at what we did last year, what our setup was like, and what we could’ve done better in the race. I think we’ve got some ideas and we’ll apply that with the deltas of this year. There are always things we can learn and improve.

    It was a really good race (last year). It’s a beautiful city and a beautiful track. The only downside we noticed was the plastic bags flying around – they actually cost us points in the race as one got caught in the radiator intake. Hopefully, that’s improved. For me, that was the only downside of what was a really good weekend.

    I would say (the track’s most challenging part) was the back end – going around the castle, up the hills, then going back down and the two last corners, which were actually pretty tricky. It’s the most challenging one. It’s pretty high speed and you’ve got to get the right balance in those corners as well as the braking. It’s pretty exciting when you get it right.”

Kevin Magnussen - “I never tried the Baku City Circuit in a simulator before actually racing there. It was a cool experience to just go on a track you don’t even have 100 percent idea which way the corners are going. I really had to learn the circuit from scratch. It was a cool experience and the track was really cool. I’m looking forward to going back again.

    It’s going to be fun. The corners are going to be faster this year because of the increased down force. We’re going to be a bit slower on the straights, so I suspect Baku might be one of the tracks where we’re not going to be that much faster than the old cars, but it’s still going to be massively fun and challenging in the corners. Now I know the track, and I learned which way the corners are going, coming back this year will be easier to adjust to the track. A couple of corners might be easy flat now, maybe even turn 13 will be flat now, which it wasn’t last year. That will be a cool experience.

    It was a pretty cool race (last year). Baku offers good opportunities to overtake. There’s a lot of action in the race – that’s always good. The most challenging part was sector two. It’s very low speed, very narrow. It’s easy to make a mistake. I guess (the Baku City Circuit is) a mixture of Monza and Monaco – which is pretty unusual. I’m looking forward to it.”

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Article Posted By: Amy Hawk
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