Romain Grosjean says his first impression of the new Haas convinces him the team will be capable of challenging for points early in 2016.
The new team unveiled the VF-16 in the pit lane ahead of the start of the first day of testing in Barcelona and was out running in the morning session. Grosjean had made a solid start when a front wing failure delayed running for a number of hours, but returned to the track to complete 31 laps by the end of the day.
Asked if his gut feeling is that Haas can challenge for points soon, Grosjean replied: “Yes.
“Melbourne is always one of the races where it is easier to score points, if you finish it normally you are not far from the top ten. I haven’t finished very often! But yes, I think we are not far off being able to be midfield.”
And the Frenchman was encouraged by the new team's ability to react to the front wing failure, with a fix on its way to Barcelona ahead of Tuesday's running.
"It’s a small team but we have big resources. We understood the problem very quickly, it was clear to everyone it shouldn’t be too hard to fix it because the fix is coming tomorrow. Ninety-nine percent chance we have sorted the problem, and that’s good.
"There were a few little things but everyone is on it, whenever it is on Ferrari’s side they have the resources and they are there, whenever it is on our side we have some good people to solve it."
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GALLERY: Pre-season testing day one
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