11/05/2017
NEWS STORY
Kevin Magnussen to get upgrade ahead of teammate Romain Grosjean following coin toss.
As ever, the start of the European F1 season sees the teams introduce their first significant upgrades of the season - though as Sebastian Vettel pointed out in today's press conference "these days every races sees teams bring new stuff" - and Haas is no exception.
However, a production delay at Dallara means that the American team will only have one, much anticipated, new floor available for the Friday practice sessions, and following a coin toss to decide who gets it, Kevin Magnussen will have first taste of the update.
"Unfortunately I won't have it until Saturday," Romain Grosjean told reporters in Barcelona. "It's not ideal, but there's only one available right now and I didn't get it.
"It was a coin toss," he added, "I've never been lucky with that.
"It's not ideal because it's a big change of a lot of things on the car and I don't know what it's going to be like tomorrow for us," he admitted. "The problem is you need to set up the car around the new package."
The Frenchman, who was recently elected director at the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, took full blame for a troubled Sochi weekend which culminated in him crashing into Jolyon Palmer on the opening lap.
"I didn't drive well, I take the blame for the weekend," he sighed. "We didn't react well from FP1, we did the wrong set-up changes. We didn't focus enough where we should have, and things got out of the way. It was low grip, I struggle with that.
"The car never really suited me," he concluded. "We took the wrong decision in the background. We need to focus more on getting things correct from the beginning."