Grosjean: Having a circuit at high-altitude doesn't make sense
- Bobby Vincent
Haas driver Romain Grosjean has said that having a circuit, such as the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, at such a high-altitude, doesn't make any sense.
Heat cools down a lot slower at high-altitude than it does normally and the Mexico City venue is the highest track on the F1 calendar by far.
"Cooling-wise I think we're still very hot on a lot of components and (on Sunday) that's going to be the challenge," Grosjean explained to RaceFans. "It's cooler than (Friday), we'll see what it's like."
Grosjean and his team-mate Kevin Magnussen both failed to progress past Q1 for the second time in a row in Mexico.
The French driver revealed that his team did everything they could to try and work on the cooling issue, and it did work, "but maybe not as much as we needed."
"But I think Mercedes have the same problem. They say they had to turn down their engine and so on," Grosjean added. "I guess everyone is really. It doesn't make much sense to have a circuit at that altitude."
Haas' rivals for the fourth spot in the Constructors', Renault had both of their cars in Q3 and Grosjean doesn't think his team will be able to compete with the French side.
"I think unfortunately we need to have a very strong race with both cars and they need to have no points," the Haas man claimed. "Even though they will be in a difficult situation with the tyres (hyper-softs), we're not the first ones to be behind. So it's not a great weekend.
"Again, a lot can happen tomorrow (Sunday), you cannot abandon right now. But on paper, it's been difficult all weekend long."