Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHaas F1 Team

Haas started 'better than expected' for Grosjean

Romain Grosjean says the way Haas was able to work as a team throughout the first test exceeded his expectations.

Haas was taking part in its first ever F1 test session ahead of its debut this year, with its new car being launched online on Sunday following a filming event over the weekend. While the test did not pass without incident - including a front wing failure on the opening day - Grosjean was left impressed with how well the team performed.

A closer look at the Haas VF-16

Asked how he felt the team had come together from an organisational point of view, Grosjean replied: "Better than expected.

"I guess from the outside it looks the same but it’s a brand new team, brand new people working together, but you’ve got the feeling that they have already been working together for a long time which is quite impressive.

"Everyone’s got a lot of experience, everyone knows what he’s doing, we’ve got people from different teams. When I left Lotus I knew what a good group of people it was, it felt like family so I didn’t know what to expect, but very happily surprised to see."

With team-mate Esteban Gutierrez saying Haas has an old-school feel about the team, Grosjean says he likes the mix of youth and experience it has.

"Well they’re all young people, but with a lot of experience. For a brand new team there’s a lot of knowledge in the background."

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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.