Grosjean attracting more F1 experience to Haas

Romain Grosjean says he will be working with some familiar faces at the Haas F1 Team after being joined by experienced team members from within the paddock.

With Grosjean having opted to leave Lotus for Haas in 2016, F1i revealed he will take chief race engineer Ayao Komatsu with him to his new team. Speaking exclusively to F1i about next year’s move, Grosjean says there will also be a number of other personnel from Lotus and other F1 teams who will follow him to Haas.

“Yeah I will [be joined by familiar faces], a few from the paddock,” Grosjean said. “A few from different teams and a few from Lotus as well. So it’s great that the new team starts with some experienced people. They said that they wanted an experienced driver, experienced engineers so then we won’t make mistakes at the beginning and we can try to optimise every chance we get.”

And Grosjean says the confidence he has in the move to Haas has been key in convincing other members of the paddock to make a similar switch if offered the chance.

“I think when I signed for Haas people asked: ‘Why is he going to Haas?’

“They knew that I was comfortable at Lotus and it may have become Renault, but then people tried to understand a little bit more why I was going and they’re big enough and they took their decision, but then they thought if their lead driver was going then maybe it was something interesting.”