"This is a win for us!" exclaimed Romain Grosjean to his ecstatic team over the radio on the slow-down lap of today's Australian GP.
The event will go down as a historic milestone for the Haas F1 Team, marking its debut in Grand Prix racing and its first world championship points.
Grosjean put in a flawless performance, driving steadily throughout the entire race, steered by the team's perfect strategy call, to deliver an impressive sixth place finish for himself and the rookie US squad.
"It feels like standing on the top step of the podium for us, it’s been an amazing race, amazing weekend. Australia has never been very nice to me so finally I change [team] and it works."
It's been a hard and highly charged period for Haas since the team hit the ground in Barcelona for pre-season testing.
Teething problems limiting mileage coupled with the team's efforts to build a second car meant that a mere finish in Australia would have been considered a huge success.
"Since day one I told the guys the car has got huge potential, so the result is more a boost for everyone.
"The key was the strategy and the red flag, we could change the tyres so we had a free pit stop and staying on the medium tyres for 39 laps to the end of the race.
"It wasn’t easy because we had no reference whatsoever of what to put in the car, what to change in terms of aero, but we kind of got it right and we made it.
"We’ve got plenty of areas where we can improve, we know it. But that result is a morale boost for everyone."
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