Haas: Romain Grosjean will aim for Q3 in qualifying

Haas continues its Formula 1 learning curve by arriving at a circuit completely different from Melbourne, the setting of the Australian Grand Prix two weeks ago where Romain Grosjean achieved the feat of finishing 6th in the race, thus scoring the team’s first eight points in the world championship.

The Frenchman is therefore confident after an intense day of work: “The second session was quite interesting. We tried several sets of tires, mediums and super softs, which allowed us to evaluate them well for the race. We had a small problem with the front wing but, overall, it was a good workday.”

Ninth fastest in the first practice session, Grosjean starts dreaming of a Q3 for tomorrow’s qualifying: « We will make some changes to get back to the same performance level as this morning. It’s not impossible that we won’t be too far from the Top 10. »

Esteban Gutierrez, who benefits from a new chassis after his collision with Fernando Alonso in Australia, also put in a significant amount of work to fine-tune his car in the best way possible: « It was very useful for us to have significant track time today. We encountered some issues in FP1 but, fortunately, we resolved them quickly. I am quite happy with the way the day went. However, we still have a bit of work to do to find the perfect balance for tomorrow. »

A single problem somewhat worried the team at the end of FP2 when smoke emerged from Romain Grosjean’s car, but nothing too serious according to sporting director Günther Steiner: “We had a slight problem with Romain’s car during the last few minutes. Smoke appeared at the back of his car, but it seemed to be just an oil leak. We also had some vibrations on the front wing, but everything is fixed.”