F1 | Haas, Grosjean: “It was a good season, but we need to work on development and tires”

Romain Grosjean look at the glass half full, without neglecting the aspects that can be improved. The 31-year-old Frenchman, in his second season with Haas, finished the drivers' championship in 13th place (as in 2016), collecting his best placing in the Austrian GP (6th place): “I think it's been a good year, it's only our second season in Formula 1, and there's been a major regulatory change. Sophomore year is always the hardest, so I think that we did very well, arriving at the final race with the possibility, potentially, of finishing sixth in the championship (Haas then finished eighth, ed.)" – explained Grosjean. “When you know that three teams are unreachable, the result becomes super positive. Of course, it will be increasingly difficult to take the next step, but this is clearly the goal for the future.".

The former Lotus driver then identified two areas for improvement: tire development and management. “We need to do a lot of work in the future – continued Grosjean – there are many areas where we can improve, but I think the model works quite well. If I think about the development, we have seen that for two consecutive years the trend was to decline over the year. We started twice with a very good car and then we ran into trouble. With the your shape of urethane we are not there, especially inutilization and in comprehension, which are the two main areas. Behind the scenes there are a few things that we could coordinate better in the factories, between Maranello, Dallara and Banbury. We should make things work more smoothly and efficiently.".

Federico Martino