“We struggled with the rear suspension overheating, meaning that the ride height keeps changing at the rear and from one lap to another we can pick up up to 4.4% of aero balance [centre of pressure],” said Grosjean when asked by The Race about his qualifying problems.
“I really feel for my race engineer because they roll the dice and they decide which flap angle we’re going to go on, but we never know where it’s going to end up. We have had the issue with it all year long but this weekend it has been really exaggerated for some reason so we’re struggling with that and the car is never the same from one lap to another.”
Grosjean says the team does not know what has caused the problem. In particular, it has led to problems between sessions once the car has cooled down, which has contributed to the session-to-session variability Haas has struggled with this season.
“From when it gets hot at the end of FP3, it gets [one] ride height and then it cools down and then you start qualifying with a different one and then every lap the rear suspension heats up and then the rear ride height changes,” said Grosjean.
