3
Gene Haas, founder and owner of the Haas F1 team, is hoping that the team can "snatch a podium" in the 2017 season. The comments are slightly ambitious as Haas enter only their second year as a Formula 1 team.
The American outfit enjoyed relative success last year, bagging 29 points. The latter stages of the season were hampered by a consistent brake issue, but Haas believes that a podium is not impossible this season.
"Well our goal would be to maybe move up a position or so and, if we can snatch a podium, I think that would be a real accomplishment," Haas explained.
"I look at it two ways, the teams up at the top are racing themselves. The top three teams I guess you'd say are Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull: they're in one league.
"The rest of us are somewhat competitive, all of our times are within a second or so and all of those guys are a second ahead of that, so it's kind of a two-tier competition, and it's intense.
"We've missed Q3 several times and you're talking about hundredths of a second, it could be half a second from all the teams in the middle, fifth to 15th were all within a few tenths. It's intense and it's going to be more intense this year."
The team have ditched Esteban Gutierrez from 2016 season, and have now brought in Dane Kevin Magnussen, who Haas says has a unique personality.
"Kevin, I think he has a unique personality," Haas said. "I think he's aggressive, but yet he's pretty quiet and calm, so my feeling is he's a good complement to Grosjean, and we put him in the car and he posted fourth fastest [on both of his test days].
"I followed him for a while, he's a very precise driver, and I think he'll work well with Grosjean and hopefully get us as many points as we had last year times two."
Fergal Walsh
Grand Prix of BelgiumLocal time
Grand Prix of BelgiumLocal time
Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
M. Verstappen
C. Sainz jr
C. Leclerc
Bahrain
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Bahrain
Bahrain International Circuit
Saudi Arabia
Jeddah Street Circuit
Australia
Albert Park
Japan
Circuit Suzuka
United States of America
Miami International Autodrome
Monaco
Monte Carlo
Canada
Gilles Villeneuve
Spain
Circuit de Catalunya
Austria
Red Bull Ring
United Kingdom
Silverstone
Hungary
Hungaroring
Belgium
Spa-Francorchamps
Netherlands
Circuit Zandvoort
Italy
Monza
Azerbaijan
Baku City Circuit
Singapore
Marina Bay Street Circuit
United States of America
Circuit of the Americas
Mexico
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez
Brazil
Interlagos
United States of America
Las Vegas Street Circuit
United Arab Emirates
Yas Marina Circuit
3 members have this team as their favourite
Tweets about Romain Grosjean
600,513 comments on Mercedes 56 members have this team as their favourite Tweets about Mercedes
Replies (3)
Login to replyf1fan0101
Posts: 1,804
That's very ambitious.. I'd be very surprised if they pulled it off
calle.itw
Posts: 8,527
Same, and Im not sure if they are capable of it.
mbmwe36
Posts: 533
Stranger things have happened. I could see them do that, especially at the beginning of the season. But yes, it is ambitious!