Romain Grosjean insists he and Haas can recover from its early setback at the British Grand Prix, in the wake of his crash during the opening practice session.
Grosjean spun on the entry to Abbey – where the use of DRS is permitted this year – and skated through the gravel before hitting the barriers, sustaining damage to the front-left of the VF-18.
Grosjean, who placed seventh in the session, took no further part in the day’s proceedings, as Haas elected to undertake a chassis change, with the car set to be re-scrutineered on Saturday morning.
“The car was fast this morning and I closed the DRS a bit too late on that lap,” Grosjean admitted.
“The aero flow didn’t recover. And I lost the rear end, it’s a shame, obviously we wanted to run FP2.
“But I have been watching Kevin [Magnussen] quite a lot and seeing what he’s doing.
“And I think we can do better for tomorrow, but the pace was good this morning, the car felt good, so tomorrow should be alright.”
Pushed further on the crash, Grosjean said: “It wasn’t a big impact. But I think the front wheel came back and removed some part on the chassis.
“[Therefore] it was easier to change the chassis rather than trying to change the aero part and that’s why we decided to change it.”
On using DRS through Abbey, team-mate Magnussen added that he “tried once and nearly ended up like Romain.
“It’s not possible for us to do it. Red Bull were doing it I think, which is incredible. It’s not even close to being possible for us.”
