Haas: Setup woes led to Singapore downward spiral

Grosjean claimed that the troubles he endured throughout practice and qualifying at the Marina Bay circuit were ‘weird’ - before he failed to make the start of the race due to a connector coming loose on his brake-by-wire system.

Following analysis of the situation since the last race, Grosjean suggested that not getting the setup right at a venue where track evolution is rapid prompted the difficulties.

“We know the explanation,” explained Grosjean. “We found out too late, but we found them out, and now again the procedure will be changed so that every time we go out on track we are where we expect to be [with the setup], and not in a different place.”

Grosjean had no concerns that there would be a repeat of his troubles as the team had learned from what happened.

“We had answers to more or less everything which is quite good,” he said. “We see the glass half full – in that we have learned from a very difficult weekend and unsuccessful weekend, to move forward and put some procedures in place which is going to help the team.

“There are a few things you would expect from the first year but we had a lot going on together in one race, which isn’t too bad if it was bad luck or things we needed to learn. Hopefully it can only go up from there.”

Team principal Gunther Steiner pointed out that matters were not helped by a turbo boost issue that limited Grosjean’s running in FP1 – and left him playing catch up.

“It started up with having an issue with pressure in the engine, the turbo pressure, and we never found our way back,” he said.

“We went wrong with the setup and there it went on. Then a connector came off on the way to the grid on Sunday.

“If you start on the wrong foot you just keep on it – and you can never get it back. We went out on an installation lap and didn’t have enough turbo boost.

"We couldn’t find the leak – we had to take the engine and then on FP2 with all the dramas and things, then he backed it in [to the wall] and it was a downwards spiral.”