Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHaas F1 Team

Grosjean feels vindicated over Haas move

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When Romain Grosjean opted to move to the brand new Haas F1 Team over the winter, many pundits believed that he was throwing away his future in Formula One.

The consensus appeared to be that Grosjean should stick with Lotus, even in its parlous state of 12 months ago, rather than risk going to a completely new team and suffering from all the inevitable headaches and setbacks inherent in a newly minted enterprise.

When Lotus was finally bought out and made into a Renault works time, Grosjean's decision seemed if anything even more perverse. And yet two races into the 2016 season and it's the rookie squad Haas that's flying high - in no small part due to Grosjean - while Renault is struggling and yet to finish in the points.

"Some people said it was career suicide. I think they were wrong. Sorry guys," said Grosjean after finishing in sixth position in Melbourne and then improving to fifth place at Bahrain.

"I said in winter testing we could score points early in the season," added Grosjean, before admitting: "I was thinking that we would be fighting between 10th and 14th.

"Scoring so many points at the beginning, I don't think anyone was expecting that," he told Reuters after his success in Bahrain last weekend.

"It was fun to be able to overtake Williams, Toro Rosso, Red Bull and have some good battles.

As a result of his robust start to his maiden season at Haas, Grosjean is currently in fifth place in the drivers standings. He's equal on points with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen and ahead of the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Felipe Massa, Max Verstappen, Daniil Kvyat and Valtteri Bottas.

"It's a dream debut, I almost have to wake up to realise what it is," said the 29-year-old. "It's an amazing performance for all of us."

How long can the run last? Grosjean has been around Formula One long enough to know there has to be return to earth sooner or later.

"I don't think we can go for fifth every time, that's a little bit high, but I think we will try for points every time," Grosjean agreed.

For the time being though, he's enjoying every minute of proving the doubters wrong and putting paid to suggestion that he only moved to the US-based team to get onto the radar of the Ferrari bosses at Maranello.

"I made that choice because I believed in the project," Grosjean insisted. "I've seen enough to think that after a few years in Formula One it could be good. Today is the truth."

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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.