Haas bodywork got the FIA attention once again. This time it wasn’t about the similarity with Ferrari’s 2017 car, but the problem with Romain Grosjean’s car shedding bits of bodywork during the Bahrain GP.
The flying pieces were seen even on the TV and Grosjean had to pull up for an unplanned pitstop to get rid of the pieces stuck to his side pod.
Owing to the problems that such flying debris may cause to other cars, the FIA is planning to take a closer look at how the parts are attached to the car, says Formula 1 race director Charlie Whiting
“When anything comes off a car it’s potentially dangerous,” said Whiting. “With all this furniture, as some people call it, it doesn’t take much to make it weaker – a small contact will probably make it weaker, and it will start to disintegrate, which is what happened with Grosjean.
“One bit fell off, luckily it went onto the grass. A couple more bits came off, and then they removed another bit at their pitstop, but it’s not very satisfactory, to be quite honest.
“I think we really need to make sure all these things are well-attached. There’s so many of them now.
“Some of the stuff that comes off, even if it’s not very big, could do a lot of damage.”
Team Boss Gunther Steiner is also clueless on how the bodywork tore and flew off.2
“I don’t know if he hit something on the kerbs or ran into someone in all the manoeuvres at the start,” he told Motorsport.com.
“But they eventually came off, and we eventually had to pit to get one piece off, because it disturbed the aerodynamics so much, It was undrivable, there was no balance anymore.”
