Romain Grosjean believes Haas’ avoidance of a second season slump in 2017 proves their model is “working pretty well”, however, would highlight a key weakness to be addressed going forward.
The American outfit would only repeat the eighth place in the Constructors’ Championship they achieved in their first season in 2016 but, thanks to the arrival of Kevin Magnussen, would score more points despite a much tightly fought midfield battle.
Haas was also more consistent across the 20 races and that pleased the Frenchman, despite being known for his complaints over the radio, particularly after being involved in a battle with the likes of Renault and Toro Rosso.
“I think it’s a good year, it’s only our second season in F1 and there’s been a big change of regulation,” Grosjean claimed. “It’s always the toughest one, the second one, so I think we’ve done very well, going into the last race potentially capable of finishing sixth in the championship.
“When you know three teams are untouchable it’s pretty good, that’s super positive. There’s a lot of work we need to do in the future, a lot of areas we can improve, but I think the model is working pretty well.
“Of course, it’s always going to be harder to get up to the next speed, but that’s clearly the target for the future.”
Work continues to bring the standard of the Haas operation up to that of most other F1 teams, although Haas has recently confirmed a halt in their expansion plans as they keep an eye on the changes Liberty Media look to introduce for 2021, and for Grosjean that is what currently holds the team back the most.
“I think development. We’ve seen two years in a row where the trend is to go a bit down in the year,” he said identifying the main weakness. “We started twice with a very good platform and we’ve been struggling.
“[With the] tyres… [we are] still not up there with tyre usage and understanding, so they’re the two main areas. Behind the scenes there a few things we can co-ordinate better between the factories.
“[There’s Ferrari] in Maranello, the one in Dallara, the one in England and getting things to run smoother and more efficient [will help].”
As for teammate Magnussen, he heaped praise on the atmosphere created within Haas after settling in during his first year with the team.
“I feel very at home, very happy,” Magnussen commented. “It’s nice to be in a team that’s very simple. Everyone here is here to go racing. There’s no bulls**t or any commercial stuff. It’s very uncommercial, a real race team. It’s kind of going racing in Formula One with an F3 team. It’s very straightforward.
“We don’t have to deal with people you don’t want to deal with. There’s no one here that I don’t really enjoy working with. You don’t have to do stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with racing, it’s all racing and none of the other stuff.”
