Haas F1 Team’s founder Gene Haas has confirmed the team is working on finding a permanent fix to the front wing failure that limited the teams running on day one of the first pre-season test on Monday.
The team did create a temporary fix on Monday to ensure Romain Grosjean completed as much running as possible.
“The problem from yesterday is given the wing had a fair amount of downforce on it, it pulled out the attachment structure on the nose,” he said to Autosport.com.
“Some aluminium and carbon fibre are integrated, and the theory is, when the aluminium heated up, then cooled down again, it pulled away from the carbon fibre, so it had some weakness there.
“On the track, with the downforce and the vibrations, that bond was not proper, it separated, and the aluminium just pulled out from the nose, which then let the wing go underneath the car, it ran over it and broke into many little pieces.
“So they took the two little down struts where the aluminium is, they put some straps around them, and then placed two screws perpendicular to the axis.
“Instead of having screws that are being pulled straight down, they are now perpendicular. That’s the fix right now for that.
“Eventually, we’ll have to come up with some other way of bonding the aluminium to the carbon fibre.”
As for the overall nature of the car itself and what he has seen so far, Haas is relatively happy.
“We have a great engine and transmission, and the chassis is good,” said Haas.
“The car’s characteristics are very neutral. It has good aero, it’s balanced on both ends, it doesn’t snap or do anything strange.
“So far it looks good, but we have to go faster and faster to find out where the limits of the car are.”
