Romain Grosjean says that the correlation issues encountered by Haas in Formula 1 this year are reminiscent of Lotus’ troubles in 2014.
Haas had endured fluctuating form through this year and has evaluated different car specifications in order to address the weaknesses of its VF-19.
It believes that wind tunnel to track correlation issues are at the root of its issues, leaving the team heading down the wrong path in terms of development.
“Lotus in 2014 was a really good example,” said Grosjean. “I was told in January 2014 that the car was good enough to be world champion – which I believed at the time! Obviously it was not.
“What we were seeing at the wind tunnel and on the track was a very different situation and it took until Budapest to actually get there, everyone to agree and understand that there were big correlation issues.
“They made some big work after that and understood it and that’s why 2015 was much better.
“But you can always have the theoretical path in the wind tunnel but when you put it in real life things are different, it’s something we are trying to understand and address for the future.
“There’s a lot of correlation issues yeah. The rest is downforce also is not really good in terms of pure numbers but the biggest issue is correlation and behaviour on track versus wind tunnel.”
Grosjean has outlined that Haas’ next step is to properly understand the root cause in order to avoid a potential repeat in 2020.
“I think we just… we didn’t put any performance on the car all year long and made some things worse, some things better,” he said.
“If you believe the wind tunnel and everything it’s all good and it’s all getting better.
“If you believe the lap time, the feeling and what we measure on track it's not so much, so that’s what we’re analysing at the moment, and what is causing the problem and the correlation issue.”
