F1 | Haas, Grosjean: “The safety car complicated everything: bad luck continues to haunt me…”

La Haas leaves China with a small point in the safe, achieved by virtue of 10th place Kevin Magnussen. The other half of the box is crying, the one presided over by Romain Grosjean, only 17th at the finish line after a troubled race negatively influenced by the Safety Car's entry onto the track. These are the words released by the two drivers on the official website of the American team.

ROMAIN GROSJEAN
Starting position: 10 °
Final results: 17th (+1:05.296) – 2 Pit Stops (Ultrasoft, Ultrasoft, Medium)
“We have adopted a courageous strategy by moving from Ultrasoft to Medium. Bad luck, however, continued to haunt me: I already knew that with the safety car we wouldn't have made a pit stop because it came out on track during my very long stint with the Mediums. I knew the restart would be very difficult, in fact it was: I tried to hang on to 11th place, but in the end the two Force Indias overtook me. We entered the pits with another set of Ultrasofts for the final ten laps. They were encouraging laps as the degradation was very low and the feeling with the car was really good. I knew things would get very difficult with the Safety Car".

KEVIN MAGNUSSEN
Starting position: 11 °
Final results: 10th (+39.594) – 1 Pit Stop (Soft, Medium)
“I was unlucky with the safety car. Our strategy paid off at the beginning, but then we had a bad moment with the safety car. We didn't take all the advantages from our strategy: we could have taken them without the safety car. I don't know if we should have made the pit stop, it was a very difficult choice: I just think that the safety car came out on track at a very unfortunate moment. We couldn't have gotten more than one point. It's still good, even if we aspired to something more. The season is long, we hope to continue earning points. I'm happy with our performances as a team, we have to continue like this.".