Romain Grosjean did not think he would get closer to Ferrari by deciding to join Haas. The French driver feels well in the American team. He thinks it is the perfect fit for him.
“Ferrari is a dream team, and that’s no secret. I thought that if I was coming to Australia with Renault, and I was scoring a point, everyone would say it’s normal, it’s a factory team, and so on. If I was going to Australia scoring the first point for an American team, it would be a big story”, Grosjean explained in an interview for GP Gazette.
“And in terms of my image, as well as in the USA and so on, it would be something quite big. So I thought image-wise, marketing-wise, and sporting challenge, that’s the fit for me, and I want to do it. Since I joined there’s not a single morning that I woke up and think, ‘what did I do?’ Yes, we’ve had good times, tough times, times where you just want to throw everything away. But in the end I come back here, and the people I work for, the atmosphere, and the boss… I think this is the perfect fit for me.”
Romain Grosjean feels well in the American team
Romain joined Haas as he knew Gene Haas’ and Guenther Steiner’s background in motorsport: “Guenther knows racing, and Gene knows racing, at least in NASCAR. It took him a few years to be successful, so I knew that that it wouldn’t be, ‘we’re coming into F1 with Haas as a sponsor, we need to be at the front’. It was, ‘we’re coming to F1, let’s learn, let’s move on, and let’s see what we can get’.”
Grosjean’s best results in 2016 were sixth place in Australia and fifth in Bahrain.Haas F1 Team ended its debut season with a very respectable eighth-place finish in the constructor standings, outpacing the factory Renault team (ninth), Sauber (10th) and Manor (11th). The 29 points Haas F1 Team earned in 2016 are the most of any new team in this millennium. When Jaguar debuted in 2000 and when Toyota came on the scene in 2002, each entity managed only two point-paying finishes in their entire first seasons for a combined total of six points.
