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Haas Formula One team owner Gene Haas has explained the front wing issues faced by the team during the opening day of pre-season testing.
The first day of testing was stopped part-way through the session when the front wing of Romain Grosjean’s Haas car detached from the car. The loose wing then fell underneath the car and broke into several pieces.
The red flags were deployed as a result, and the team took part in limited running for the rest of the day.
When speaking to the media, Gene Haas explained the structure issue with the component.
“The problem from yesterday was that the wing has a fair amount of downforce on it, so it pulled out the attachment structure on the nose, which is some aluminium that the carbon fibre is integrated with,” explained Haas.
“The theory is that when the aluminium heats up, and it’s pulled down, it pulled away from the carbon fibre, so it had some weakness there. On the track, with the downforce and the vibrations, that bond wasn’t proper, so it separated.
“So the aluminium just pulled out from the nose which mean’t the wing went underneath the car and was run over.”
The team were able to find a solution to the problem in time for Esteban Gutierrez to have sufficient running in the car.
“The solution was they took the two little down struts where the aluminium is and they put straps around them, and then put some screws perpendicular to the axis so now instead of having screws that are pulled down, we have screws that are perpendicular that are under shear [stress].
“That’s the fix right now, but we’ll have to come up with some other way of bonding the aluminium to the carbon fibre.”
Issues aside, the Haas team impressed on their opening day of running. They lapped within 3.5 seconds of the fastest time and still managed to register over 30 laps.
Gene Haas was encouraged by the test progress so far.
“We have a great engine and transmission, the chassis is good, the only thing that hasn’t really exercised yet is the crew, so that’s what we’re doing this week; getting the crew to understand how the car goes together with all of the various parts. They have to change the engine out probably half a dozen times, so that’ll be a good learning experience.
“The car’s characteristics are very neutral, it has good aero, it’s balanced, it’s very neutral going through the turns, it doesn’t snap or do anything strange. So far it looks good, but we’ll have to go faster to find the limits of the car.”
Romain Grosjean will next appear for Haas on Wednesday. Esteban Gutierrez, meanwhile, takes over for days two and four of testing.
