Haas hoping for trouble-free day as team deals with 'gremlins'

Haas team boss Guenther Steiner says the US outfit needs a trouble-free last day of testing after Thursday's running was hindered by more teething troubles for its VF-19.

Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were both on duty on the penultimate day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, but a brake-by-wire issue in the morning and an exhaust problem in the afternoon undermined Haas' programme.

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Since the start of pre-season testing last week, Haas' VF-19 has suffered from several minor technical issues that the team has ironed out.

"It’s been a little disappointing today, we didn’t do enough running," said a frustrated Steiner.

"In the morning we had a programming issue with the brake-by-wire system so we had to sort that one out.

"And in the afternoon we had a failure on the exhaust manifold, that had a gas leak and we had to change it.

"And nothing is easy on these cars to change so we had to take the gearbox off to get to the turbocharger and take the exhaust manifold off."

©Haas

Steiner said the niggling problems had still allowed the team to conduct almost a normal programme in the morning with Magnussen, but little was accomplished in the afternoon as Grosjean only put in 16 laps.

"Hopefully we’re getting all our little gremlins over with here in testing, so we don’t bring them to the races," said Steiner.

"We need to have a good day tomorrow, hopefully, but then I cannot demand that. Lady luck will play some part in that one"

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