Romain Grosjean says he had “no feeling” with his Haas VF-17 during Friday's second practice session for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, as he finished at the foot of the time sheets.
Grosjean was 13th quickest in the opening session but slipped to 20th and last in the second 90-minute session, amid several off-track excursions and frustrated radio messages.
The Frenchman expressed concern that Haas is now on the back foot heading into Saturday’s action at the Baku City Circuit.
“It was a frustrating afternoon – the feeling just wasn’t there,” said Grosjean.
“There’s not really much I can say, to be honest. I just had no feeling in the car.
“That’s obviously something that we need to look at a lot more depth as we’ve effectively lost a session heading into Saturday.
“There’s lots of work to do but, hopefully, we can focus and identify the issues and put it right.”
Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner believes the outfit now has to “start from the beginning” in order to address Grosjean’s struggles.
“We had a good morning session, but in the afternoon we struggled with everything a little bit,” he said.
“Between traffic, going straight, no feeling in the car – it’s just like we have to start from the beginning. We need to see what changed between FP1 and FP2.”
Grosjean’s Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen finished in 14th position.
