China will give an indication of true position - Gutierrez

Esteban Gutierrez expects Haas to know more about its true position in the pecking order after the Chinese Grand Prix.

Having opened its debut F1 season with consecutive top six finishes courtesy of Romain Grosjean, expectations are high as Haas is targeting points at every race. While Gutierrez is pleasantly surprised with the performance of the car so far, he has urged the team not to get carried away before it has seen its pace in China.

“It is true that we have surprised many people," Gutierrez said. "It’s a situation that probably we didn’t expect – to be that good.

"We still need to manage our expectations because our car at the moment has reacted pretty well in Melbourne and in Bahrain, but we need to learn how it will react now in China.

"I think China will give us a good indication of how the season will be, and also the fact that all the other teams are pushing really hard to develop their car during the season. And as the season advances, it will get more and more competitive, so we need to be ready for that.

"We can still extract more speed and performance from our car, and China gives us an opportunity to do just that.”

With Shanghai a front-limited circuit which often sees cool temperatures, Gutierrez is backing Haas to be able to continue getting performance out of its car regardless of conditions.

“The different compounds are directly affecting the car’s balance, and our tyre selection seems to be quite good. I feel very confident in our strategy, and I’m involved in the planning and execution. We are working in a very good way, and we’re able to react quickly to any circumstances that might come during the race.”

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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.

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