Grosjean urges Haas to remember pre-season hopes

Romain Grosjean has urged Haas to keep its expectations in check after initially being disappointed by his qualifying result in China.

The Frenchman will start from 14th on the grid after struggling for pace on the supersoft tyre, with the front-limited circuit not suiting the VF-16. While the red flag for Nico Hulkenberg's loose wheel prevented any chance of improvement, Grosjean was unlikely to improve and admits the position so far this weekend feels more disappointing due to the excellent first two results he has enjoyed.

"Yeah I think everyone was a bit [down], myself the first," Grosjean said. "We want to stay where we are, we want to stay with the big boys and I think again we’ve been boxing in a higher category than ours for the first two races when on the paper there were no explanations that we shouldn’t be able to be again.

"Here we are, missed experience on this type of track, very little running, a few small issues and that cost us some time again. Tomorrow is a long race, hopefully we can make up some good points and yes I think we have to keep ourselves to the ground and manage expectations."

And Grosjean believes Haas needs to remember what it would have classed as a success at the start of the year.

"It’s been a wonderful start to the season but again if we had been scoring once at one point, another time a point, you’d think this is normal, but what we have been doing is not normal so we have to put our brain to that normal position."