Romain Grosjean says the new 2019 Formula 1 cars are easier to follow, but there’s still one factor hurting the racing.
Australia’s Albert Park was always going to be a tough circuit to assess the impact of the wider, simpler wings, with the lack of long straights meaning the slipstream effect is always limited.
However, the Haas driver confirmed the problem of dirty air does seem to have made a step forward compared to last year.
“The new rules for the aero, it’s easy to follow another car, which is good, but the tyres are still overheating as soon as you push, so it’s very, very difficult to overtake,” Grosjean told Motorsport.com.
“If you noticed it took how many laps to pass Giovinazzi, it’s just too difficult to push on the tyre, they overheat and that’s it. You lose the grip and you cannot get close enough.
“It’s good on TV I think but the next step is to get more robust tyres to get better racing.”
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As for Grosjean’s race, history repeated itself as a strong first stint came to nothing due to a loose wheel.
“Deja-vu from last year on Romain’s (Grosjean) car it looks like, a pit stop gone wrong,” said Haas team boss Guenther Steiner.
“Last year, after Australia, we went 20 races – the rest of the season, without another pit stop issue. We’re a little bit unlucky here, we’ll have to investigate what happened, it’s too early to say [what happened] right now.
“This year we take eight points away from Melbourne, last year we were last leaving Australia. It’s better than in 2018. I think with this car we can be strong in all the remaining 20 races.”
