Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHaas F1 Team

Perez expects to fight Haas 'straight away'

Sergio Perez believes Haas will be a threat to Force India "straight away" in 2016 despite it being the team's debut F1 season.

Haas enters the sport after a long period of preparation having deferred its entry from 2015 in order to give itself more time to build its infrastructure. With Haas having entered in to a close technical partnership with Ferrari, when asked if Perez expects the new team to be a threat this season he replied: "Definitely.

"Haas can be a strong challenge. I think they are going to be fighting with us straight away.

"I think having a strong link with Ferrari will help them a lot and give them a lot of direction. I expect them to be a good team straight away."

Haas will run Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez as its driver line-up in 2016 having opted for experience alongside a Ferrari reserve. Perez believes joining Haas was a risk worth taking for Grosjean having had two uncompetitive years at Lotus.

"It is a big challenge to go for a new team. At the same time he knows he won’t win the championship where he was so I was not really surprised. He is looking for another target and, who knows, it could be the right decision for his future."

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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.