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Grosjean not expecting change at the front before 2021

Haas F1's Romain Grosjean believes Formula 1 needs more diverse winners in the future, not just those driving for Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

The last driver outside the big three teams to win a Grand Prix was Kimi Raikkonen in 2013 when he was driving for Lotus. Last season, the only other driver to take a podium position was Force India's Sergio Perez at Baku.

Grosjean says he doesn't expect that to change this season or next, despite the introduction of new aero rules into the sport to make on-track action more exciting.

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"Formula 1 needs to get better at having more chances to win races,” the Frenchman insisted. [But] I don’t think that’s going to be before 2021.

"Ideally you would like as many teams as possible to be fighting for a win," he continued. "What’s the point of coming just to be always behind the same [drivers and teams]?

"But at the minute I think it’s going to be the same thing," he sighed.

The sport is still discussing more widespread changes to the regulations due to be introduced in two year's time which has the possibility of reshaping the competition moving forward. But that's still a long way off.

On the positive side, away from the top three teams last year's campaign was a close-fought affair with Haas narrowly losing out on fourth place in the constructors championship tp Renault.

However Formula 1's newest team did finish comfortably ahead of some of the sport's biggest names including McLaren, Force India and Sauber.

"If you look at the midfield race last year was quite exciting, a lot of changing of orders," Grosjean acknowledged. "And then there’s another race at the front.

“We set the bar quite high up last year with fifth. Obviously we want to keep an eye on fourth if it’s possible.

"Again I’m not thinking we’re going to beat Red Bull, Ferrari or Mercedes this year," he admitted.

“The first indication is going to be how good the car is in Barcelona, and then how much development we can actually put on the car for the season," he added. "There’s a lot of people want to be 'best of the rest'.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.