Photo: Haas F1 Team

Engine Failure Cuts Qualifying Short for Grosjean

By Adam Tate, Associate Editor

Romain Grosjean’s run of bad luck continued today when his Ferrari power unit began puffing smoke almost immediately after leaving the Haas F1 Team garage for his first run in Q1.

The smoke billowed and the Frenchman was forced to stop his VF-18 before even leaving the pit lane. Despite Haas competing with Renault for best of the rest honors at most of the races this year, Grosjean has yet to score a point this year and sits at the back of the drivers standings with Williams man Sergey Sirotkin.

Grosjean who is usually quite temperamental has seemed to mellow and begrudgingly accept his terrible luck to start the 2018 season. Afterwards he went into more detail on his feelings for the season so far.

“Something went wrong,” Grosjean said. “Maybe the beaver from yesterday was still in there somewhere. Seriously though, we laugh about it as it’s been a terrible series of luck since the first race of the season. We’ve had some really tough luck. Anyway, the feeling in the car was really good since FP1.

“I was very happy with the upgrade. Kevin was improving and getting better in qualifying, which is great for the team.”

Despite the setback, the 32-year-old still managed to take an optimistic tone when looking towards tomorrow’s race.

“Starting last is never ideal, but it’s one of those racetracks where you can overtake, so luckily it’s not Monaco,” Grosjean said.

“I think everyone starting on hypersofts (Pirelli tire compound) is going to suffer from the degradation, especially if it’s warm. We’re going to try something different. There are a lot of cars to get around.

“A good safety car, some luck at a good time, and we could be up there.”

Grosjean’s teammate, Kevin Magnussen, will start from 11th tomorrow after just missing out on Q3 in his battle with the Force India drivers.

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About

Associate Editor of Motorsports Tribune and jack of all trades, Adam is our resident Formula 1 expert. He has covered F1, IndyCar, WEC, IMSA, NASCAR, PWC and more. His work has been featured on multiple outlets including AutoWeek and Motorsport.com. A MT Co-founder, Adam has been with us since the beginning when he and Joey created Tribute Racing back in 2012. When not at the track or writing about cars, Adam can be found enjoying the Oregon back roads in his GTI.