Grosjean 'amazed' by Haas reaction to China

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Romain Grosjean is "amazed by the reaction" at Haas following a tough weekend at the Chinese Grand Prix.

After the team pulled off two impressive results in the opening two races, Haas struggled in China with Esteban Gutierrez finished 14th and Grosjean in 19th after contact on the first lap. The Frenchman says Haas has been working hard to understand why it struggled with the car and he is impressed with the response to a difficult weekend.

Romain Grosjean column: Haas brought back down to earth

“I think it was a very positive weekend for us because we have done much more analysis after China than we did after Bahrain because we could see real problems of why we were on the back foot otherwise not reacting to the next problems of what we did right or wrong," Grosjean said.

"I am amazed by the reaction back at the factory and everything that has been put in place for here. Hopefully, I am very looking forward to being back in the car tomorrow and after a few laps we will be back where we wanted to be and back to a good baseline and we can work from there.”

Haas has opted for 10 sets of supersofts this weekend in Russia, and Grosjean is hopeful the car will perform better on the softer compound as he believes even the ultrasoft could have been used in Sochi.

“Initially, in Bahrain we were faster in the race than we were in qualifying and our deg is better than others. We sometimes don’t get 100 per cent of the tyres but I think it is better. The race is where it counts, so that is where you want to be as good as you can and I am sure there are a few tricks we can use.

"We like [the supersofts]. They fit well with the car, the red with the branding! Yeah ultrasoft we could have gone for it. So far we got the choices right, so I’m confident that we’re in a good place.”

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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.