New F1 team Haas endured another disrupted day of testing on Thursday, this time due to problems with their brake-by-wire system.
“It’s been a challenging day,” team principal Guenther Steiner admitted. “However, we managed to get some running in, so that was a positive.” Haas completed just one lap yesterday and 23 on Tuesday due to power unit problems.
“We had some issues with the brake-by-wire system while trying to develop it. We’re still working on it and, therefore, it caused Romain to have a few offs, but this is what testing is about.”
Grosjean said the team’s fortunes had taken a downward turn following a promising first week with the VF-16. “Not an easy day, not an easy week for us so far,” he said.
“The first week of testing went very well. The second has been a bit tricky. We’ve had some challenges with the brake-by-wire system on the car, which has made things a bit complicated.”
Ahead of the final day of testing tomorrow Grosjean said he believes the team “know where to look to get the car back to where it should be” and expects them to have a more productive day.
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Marc Thielke (@motor)
4th March 2016, 8:07
I wish they would have put all the regen(apart from turbo regen) in from the front wheels only and power to the road from the rears only. imho splitting up the power/regen would have made the systems easier to manage from the start and would have made the drivers feel like they were still driving a race car.
The numbers of testing failures, meaning lack of laps done, and the number of ‘spin by wire’ racing failures seems to beg a new system.
Remember the cheeky, Honda was it?, ‘front brakes bias driveshaft’ trick that was done in practice only? Anyway, weight distribution with a generator up front would be a plus as well.
SatchelCharge (@satchelcharge)
4th March 2016, 16:15
It would be way more complicated for teams that way. The front brakes are subject to far more energy than the rears, get hotter, and imagine running all that equipment to the front of the car! There is no room.