Romain Grosjean fumes over F1 ‘joke’, Daniel Ricciardo looking for answers

ROMAIN Grosjean was fuming after the Chinese Grand Prix and he’s brought dead F1 star Jules Bianchi into the mix.

Romain Grosjean was furious.

ROMAIN Grosjean has declared the grid penalty stewards slapped him with in China a “joke” after he was accused of ignoring the yellow flags.

The Haas driver slid down five places when he was ruled not to have slowed down sufficiently during the first qualifying session in Shanghai after Antonio Giovinazzi crashed.

Grosjean was furious at the time, tweeting his anger by saying he did back off the accelerator, and now says F1 needs more consistency.

“I’m not angry, I just thought it was a joke,” Grosjean said, per crash.net. “I think we need consistency and we need better judgment. That was a bit strange. I tweeted the data because I was so annoyed. There’s nothing we can do. We cannot even appeal the decision.

“We discussed with (race director) Charlie (Whiting), and after this discussion I believe he agreed I had done enough, but the penalty was already done.

“What I think could have happened is you go there, you explain what happened and they call you back, and say that’s what we’re going to give you. Then you can argue a bit more. Because if you go there to the stewards and the first thing you do is give a lot of explanation, I did that, I didn’t open the DRS, it looks like you are guilty.”

Grosjean says all drivers know the importance of slowing down when the yellow flags come out, particularly in the wake of Jules Bianchi’s death. Bianchi died following head injuries sustained at the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.

“Hopefully we all know that this is a serious matter. Jules was a hard recall,” Grosjean said. “We know it’s a serious matter. I believe I tweeted that as a serious matter, that’s why I was really annoyed. I really swore a little bit.”

Grosjean finished 11th in China.

Grosjean demands improvement in F1’s processes.

RED BULL QUESTION RICCIARDO CAN’T ANSWER

Daniel Ricciardo has admitted Red Bull’s hopes of challenging Mercedes and Ferrari will not be realised by a “quick fix” to its 2017 car — as he sets May’s Spanish GP for the start of its full fightback.

Having been widely tipped to be the team to challenge Mercedes’ supremacy at the start of F1’s new era of aero rules, Red Bull’s relatively disappointing form has proved one of the year’s early surprise stories with the team qualifying over one second adrift of pole in Australia and China.

Ricciardo says the situation is “disappointing” but “not demoralising” and hopes the start of the European season next month is where the first green shoots of recovery are seen.

“We know we’re still not on their pace. It’s not like we’re looking for three, four tenths — we’re looking for more than a second,” said Ricciardo of the gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.

“That doesn’t happen overnight. We always feel once we get to Europe things start to brighten up for us, so I’d like to say by the time we get to Barcelona we can get that (gap) below a second and then try to chip away at it from there.

“I think we’ve got an update around Canada, an engine one, but right now we’re obviously too far away. But we don’t have a massive cure yet to say, ‘Yep, by this race we’re going to be on their pace.’ It’s going to take steady work.”

There have already been suggestions that Red Bull will arrive at the Spanish GP — the venue where teams traditionally introduce their first big car upgrades of the season — with essentially a “new” car around the chassis.

Asked if that level of improvement was what it is going to take for Red Bull to muscle in on the fight for wins, Ricciardo replied: “We are talking over a second — it needs to be something bigger than a new front wing or something like that.

The new Red Bull isn’t living up to expectations.

“I’d love to say it could be a quick fix like that and all of a sudden we’ll find a second (of lap time), but realistically it would be something bigger than that. What it is I don’t know.”

While Ricciardo wasn’t expecting to topple Mercedes and Ferrari so early in the season, the one problem he can’t explain is why Red Bull appears to be even further behind than it was last year.

“Sure it does not explain why we are further away than we were last year, we expected to be closer. That is the question, but why I am not sure,” he said.

Since the end of its era of dominance in 2013, Red Bull has won five races — none of which have come in the season’s early flyaway rounds. And, even in the years when it won consecutive world titles, the team often did not hit its full stride until mid-season.

“I don’t think they ever dominated testing, but before my time in the team (pre-2014) that was because they were running 100kg (of fuel) and everyone else was running 20! They knew what they had,” added Ricciardo.

“Obviously the biggest change since then has been these V6 (engines) and I’d probably put most of it down to that. I don’t think they’re slacking off over Christmas, I’m not suggesting anything like that, but unfortunately it’s been a trend for the last four years now that we’re not starting off in Melbourne with the chance to win.”

— James Galloway, Sky Sports