Grosjean sees two teams moving ahead of the mid-field battle

Romain Grosjean believes the mid-field battle in Formula 1 could see a change of complexion next season if McLaren and Renault enjoy a performance boost, as expected.

The Frenchman is expecting both teams to move up the grid in 2018 following a change of engine supplier for the former and continued progress for the latter.

"McLaren is going to be super strong next year and they have huge resources, probably the biggest factory in Formula 1," says Grosjean.

"The Renault engine is a decent engine, they've had reliability issues but power-wise they're up there, Renault is a on a high, they've been developing pretty well and are in front of us already.

"The question is Force India, Williams, ourselves and Toro Rosso with their new power unit."

Despite the first two enjoying plum Mercedes power and the third being an unknown quantity, Grosjean is hopeful Haas can remain a top mid-field contender.

"Some teams are going to maybe have a less powerful power unit, so one goes up one goes down," he said.

"I think the best [approach] is to do our own work; we know where to improve, there's a few areas where we really need to focus on to get better.

"[We need to be] making sure the updates – when they're coming – are working and they have been well validated before," he continued.

"[That would mean] we're not losing three months of time to bring something that actually doesn't bring what it's supposed to do, so that's an area, just an example."

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