Haas hits more trouble in F1 testing

The Haas Formula 1 team's preparations for the new season suffered fresh frustrations on Thursday when Romain Grosjean had two off-track incidents in testing that brought out red flags.

As the team bounced back from a disrupted programme after limited mileage on Tuesday (fuel system failure) and Wednesday (turbo), Grosjean faced a different kind of trouble.

Just before the lunch break, he ran off the track at Turn 4 and skipped across the gravel trap after suffering some unexplained problem.

Then, just an hour after resuming activities, Grosjean had a more spectacular off as he ended up stranded in the gravel trap at Turn 1.

Although there was no video of what happened, tyre marks appeared to suggest that he had lost control under braking before spinning to a halt.

Grosjean escaped both incidents without hitting the barriers, though, and it is likely that he will be able to resume running later on Thursday depending on the nature of the problem.

Speaking about the first incident before lunch, Grosjean said: "We're trying to investigate.

"I locked the front wheel, went straight, and hoped it would stop before the wall.

"There is a bit of cleaning unfortunately and trying to understand exactly what happened."

Catch up

With the team having lost valuable testing mileage this week, Grosjean admitted that preparations for Melbourne were not as well advanced as the team may have hoped.

"It certainly doesn't help when you get eight days and you miss two - but we are trying to catch back," he said.
"We are a new team so there's a lot to learn - but generally everyone is working well. There are a few areas where we can massively improve, but the rest is up there."