Romain Grosjean finally saw his 2018 season take an upward turn as he scored his first points and led Haas to their best finish at the Austrian GP on Sunday.
A combination of poor luck and several crashes had haunted the Frenchman since Australia, but he was the quickest midfield driver all weekend in Spielberg and would split the two Red Bulls on pure pace in qualifying, going on to start fifth.
Then, as three of the top six cars retired, he would be the man to capitalise, leading teammate Kevin Magnussen to a fourth and fifth place result at the Red Bull Ring, more than double their previous best total number of points at a single race.
“It is great, our 50th Grand Prix, finishing P4 and P5, a best-ever result for the team,” he declared
“I got a lot of criticism but the team has always been behind me but this weekend was just what we wanted to stop that negative spiral and eventually try and go back to a positive one.
“It was mainly for me and my boys and for my team. Here we are and showing that we can still do some really good racing.
“Obviously I feel better now, I am happy that we are starting to get some luck and I feel for Lewis [Hamilton] and Valtteri [Bottas] and Daniel [Ricciardo] but it was just more places we could get.
“Just going back home and knowing my boys are proud of me, it makes me go ‘Yes!’.”
For Grosjean, the main hurdles came in the form of Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel making their way through after starting behind but also the tyres as he looked to avoid the fate that befell the Australian and also Hamilton.
“To be fair, the last 20 laps, I was looking at my rear tyres thinking that I was never going to make it,” he claimed. “I had massive blistering and I was avoiding every kerb.
“We don’t want any bad luck, we don’t want anything to explode right now. I just took it carefully, I knew the gap was big behind so let’s roll on and give the boys what they deserve.”
