Grosjean’s deficit ‘too big of a gap to be true’

Haas’ Romain Grosjean says his startling deficit to the rest of the field following Friday practice at Sochi is “too big to be true”.

Grosjean ended the second practice session ahead of the Russian Grand Prix in 20th place, 1.1 seconds down on team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who classified 18th.

Grosjean states he hopes the team can discover a solution before Saturday in order to restore his confidence behind the wheel.

“We’ve been working as much as we could all day,” Grosjean said. “The feeling hasn’t been there, we’re lacking pace – that was quite obvious on the qualifying run.

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“Our race pace was a touch better but it’s still not exactly where we’d like it to be. We’ll keep working and hopefully come up with a solution for tomorrow.

“I’m surprised to be 1.1 seconds off the other car, that’s not really good. We’re looking at everything as obviously that’s too big of a gap to be true.

“Hopefully we can come up with something, and my feeling and confidence in the car gets better so I can push a bit more.

“I have to hope for opportunities and stay out of trouble. We always give our best – that’s for sure.”

Grosjean is currently enduring his longest personal points drought, having last scored a top 10 finish at the 2019 German Grand Prix – 20 races ago.

Haas has only picked up one point this year, which came in Hungary, where Magnussen finished 10th.