Grosjean expects gains from exhaust upgrade

2013 Chinese Grand Prix

Posted on

| Written by

Romain Grosjean says he’s eager to get his hands on the exhaust upgrade that was run on his team mate’s car during the last race weekend.

“We’ve been making steps forward with performance and that’s always what you want,” said Grosjean ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

“The new front wing was beneficial and I’m looking forward to getting the latest exhaust configuration in China. Kimi [Raikkonen] used it in Sepang and it was definitely of benefit to the car.”

Technical director James Allison confirmed: “We’ll be upgrading Romain to the latest spec exhaust and related bodywork as run by Kimi in Malaysia.”

“We also have a few small tweaks to the front wing, rear wind endplates and sidepod vanes. One of the benefits gained from the new exhaust package is an increase in rear downforce through corners where the ratio of exhaust speed to car speed is high, which tend to be the lower speed corners.”

Grosjean said his start to the season has been “frustrating”. “I don’t think I’ve shown my full potential yet,” he added.

He finished sixth in Malaysia, ahead of Raikkonen, but believed he could have done better “if we’d had the car we wanted all weekend”.

“Starting further up the grid and making a better start would have helped too, but it’s always easy to say that,” he added. “During the race itself I spent a lot of time stuck behind Felipe [Massa] in the middle phase and I’m sure if I could have passed him earlier then I would have stayed ahead.”

“But by the end my tyres were finished so it was best just to let him through without compromising either of our races. There were a couple of times where maybe the backmarkers could have made things a little easier too.”

2013 Chinese Grand Prix

Browse all 2013 Chinese Grand Prix articles

Image © Lotus/LAT

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

23 comments on “Grosjean expects gains from exhaust upgrade”

  1. “He finished sixth in China” – ‘d be Malaysia I presume
    Looking forward to China and some dry-ish conditions

    1. So 3rd in the championship shouldn’t count for anything when the cars in 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th were all on much higher budgets?

  2. It’s about time they get equal treatment.

    1. At the beginning of last year Romain got the new parts first (back in Valencia), and they had equal treatment right up until Grosjean started losing his way after the summer break

      1. Thank you @endel sometimes people have selective memory.

    2. they got it in Melbourne.

      Malaysia was 1 off.

      Just like last year when kimi wastin FPS to test the ultimate failure passive DRS. He nvr whines about it. Romain also receive new upgrades first from valencia to hockenheim period while Kimi had to wait until Hungary.

      1. I wasn’t happy about them having different cars at the time either.

        1. happened to Redbull in 2012 too. When Vettel was running old exhaust while Webber was running the new version.

          1. *In shanghai 2012*

          2. It really is a shame when powerhouses like the TOP5 teams, who have the credits, don’t always get it right and are not able to provide equal cars to both drivers. As they tend to have two top levels roosters (Ferrari comments ignored), or at least two drivers seeing themselves as top dogs, it can only lead to frustration and bitterness really.

            I for one cannot understand it. It’s really the same case as asking the slower driver to let the faster driver go by. Teamwise it really makes sense. After all, testing and trying parts is valuable, maybe more so if you can compare both versions in racing condition… But I just can’t get my head around it when it happens.

          3. How do you keep track of such minute details?

          4. happened to Redbull in 2012 too. When Vettel was running old exhaust while Webber was running the new version.

            That was a personal choice from Vettel: he felt he was faster with the old exhaust, so Red Bull put it back on his car.

          5. That’s because he didn’t need it

        2. @tango

          I for one cannot understand it.

          It’s not that complicated really; they’re making custom parts, sometimes right up to the day before the race, and they can’t always make two sets of parts in time so they’re left with the choice of giving the one set they’ve got to one driver or leaving both drivers using the older spec parts.

          If you were spending millions developing new parts would you honestly leave them on the shelf until you had enough for both drivers or would you give one driver the newer, and hopefully better, parts and tell the other he’ll get the same parts once they’ve been built ?

          1. I understand the technicalities. I doubt your explanation is the only acceptable one. Not that it is entirely wrong, but I believe price of parts is not such a big problem, especially to rich manufacturers.
            First, I doubt they are million euros parts as you say. You don’t need to double research budget to have two parts rather than one, and I believe production price is generally a fraction of development price (eg: once the mould or dye is done..). I believe the only probable technical problem would be a problem of production and materials management. These problems couldn’t explain multi races differences in cars. (if only because if production and delivery time is so slow to have a second version of the part, how on earth are you going to do spares ?)
            I am sure however that most times, having only one set, especially for more than one race as was the case last year, is due to the benefit of testing both versions at the same time. And so giving the pieces to one driver rather than the other (and rather than boths) is a choice rather than an obligation.

          2. I think it’s a consequence of less testing, it means you’re less sure about new parts. So what you do is spread your eggs over different baskets.
            Why not make 2? Because nothing is free and the resources spent on making the 2nd one can be used to do something else.

    3. Most likely it had to do budget limits in making the parts, or were just tested on Kimi.

      1. @ivano. Bit of both really. But it was impressive that Romain still finished ahead of Kimi in Malaysia.

        1. @aish. Indeed.

          I still feel he’s faster than Kimi on a full race, but like Kimi, he has his off days.

          1. Faster like how??

            Like in bahrain when kimi started 11th and finished ahead of him?? Like Hungary when kimi started 5th and finished 10+ sec ahead of him despite having kers recharging difficulties?? In abu dhabi when Kimi was way ahead in the lead while Romain was nowhere to be on his pace??

            Never stop being amuse with these claim like how Romain was faster than Kimi.

        2. impressive indeed when Kimi ‘s car was behaving strangely. Watch onboard and you will realize the car was ready to snapped by oversteer anytime.

          faster than Kimi on full race??? not really.

        3. You mean like how Kimi finished ahead of Romain and scoring more podiums and points despite not having upgrades package that Romain had during valencia to hockenheim period in 2012??

          Romain was lucky by not receiving the upgrade. After FP3, kimi said the car was behaving very strangely and keep losing downforce. However, its too late to change anything.

          THe only changes made to his car was the upgrade. Prior to that, kimi just won the melbourne with old configuration spec car.

  3. “I don’t think I’ve shown my full potential yet”

    edited for yea “I don’t think I’ve shown my car’s full potential yet”

Comments are closed.