Romain Grosjean 'proud' of progress at Haas F1

Romain Grosjean says he’s proud of the Haas F1 team after it has shown much improved consistency in 2017, despite ongoing brake issues.

Grosjean has finished in the points four times in seven starts, including the last three races consecutively.

“I think from the first year we’ve shown that we’ve gained consistency,” he said. “And that the team is growing up and capitalizing on good calls, good strategy, getting the best of the situation, even though maybe the performance in Canada, for example, was not really good.

“But in the race it was a very aggressive strategy and, with a bit of luck at the end, we managed to score points. Monaco, we were pretty fast where we struggled last year. So I think we’ve moved a long way. Every time I look back and see what we’re doing I’m very proud of the team and kind of myself, because I was in there since day one, and everything we’re achieving today is actually work that we’ve all done together. It’s a very special experience to build a team around you.”

Grosjean admitted that he would love to be in a winning team, but insisted that he’s still enjoying the challenge of building up Haas.

“I’m frustrated sometimes because I love winning and that’s all that matters to me in Formula One, and obviously you come from other categories where you’ve won everything, and then you come to F1 and you don’t get the chance to win a race because it’s like you were starting the race 10 seconds behind the others.

“But it’s great as well to see that we can start from zero – a new team – and we can build and we can surprise a lot of people. Everyone was ‘Ah yeah, Haas coming into Formula One and they’ve got four years’ full time in the wind tunnel and they could be great,’ and then last year we struggled a bit and then people were like ‘Yeah, you know...’

“That’s normal for Formula One but actually the whole process was to prepare for 2017 and we’re already on 2018 and trying to get better every year, and that’s finding resources, the effort and do what it takes to get there; it’s pretty important. I think the year started well, the problem of this year is that there are two Mercedes, two Ferraris and two Red Bulls in the first six positions and they’re already locked so the race kind of starts from P7 onwards and then Williams and Force India have been very fast recently so you’ve got one spot, maybe two spots in the top 10 to score points so it’s pretty tricky.

“We lost a fair amount of points in Melbourne as well because of the issue in the power units when we were ahead of the midfield but generally I think we are working hard and I’m hoping that we can join a bit more the fight for bigger points.”

Asked about his hopes of landing a Ferrari drive in 2018, he said: “I think it’s early days and we’re not even in July. Who knows what the F1 grid is going to be like next year? Valtteri is of course waiting on Mercedes, then there’s the Kimi case, what is he going to do?

“Everyone thinks he’s going to be out of Formula One since 2010 and here we are in 2017 and he’s 38 and he’s still here doing a decent job. So I don’t know. If there is an opportunity, if there is a seat, I believe I’m in a good position but it doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”