Again, the Haas F1 Team delivers. Both cars finished the race and Grosjean landed in 8th. My expectations were exceeded by the team scoring points. But I think we are going to get used to this real quick and the bar will continue to notch up.
The race review I am about to write seems like a repetition to my pre-race analysis, because my pre-race analysis was consistent with what happened. Since it’s a journal I can say things like that. So…
Turn 1 was a bottleneck, Vettel was knocked out going into turn 2 by Kvyat . Grosjean was off with a jack rabbit start and in a safe position from the turn 1 contacts. Gutierrez found himself in trouble with the Force India car of Nico Hulkenberg and was forced to change his nose when the smoke cleared. Under Caution Gutierrez did not seem to lose much track position, but in the end he did not gain any either.
Grosjean’s performance, on the other hand, must be bringing the attention from other teams. I give my driver of the day to Jan Magnussen because he did the most with the least. But Romain carried the mail for Haas today.
The Mercedes powered cars were the biggest threat to Haas. The Williams and Force India’s are the teams Haas seems to possibly be on par with. The Force India of Sergio Perez was on the tail of Grosjean for nearly the entire second half of the race, and the Haas car provided the necessary performance for Grosjean to fight. In all but the Chinese Grand Prix are we seeing that Grosjean’s Haas is in the mix, and winning their battles.
On the other hand, the 21 car is not matching the 8. As Guiterrez settles into the car he will improve. But the driver selection was based on blind expectations, and an apparent obligation to escalate the Ferrari reserve driver. Was this an out for Ferrari? A courtesy for Haas? We have a long season ahead of us, and a proper evaluation can only be performed after the season. But in the heat of battle it is easy to get over zealous in our evaluations. But at some point the delta between the two drivers will be evaluated and it’s impossible to avoid the subject.
Grosjean definitely got the jump on Guitteries when they went green. That put Grosjean into a better position and ahead, and allowed him to emerge unscathed from turn 1. Again,in the pre-race review I mentioned to watch the difference between their two starts. But Grosjean seems to be a master of starting, and that is a trait he brings at Lotus. But Gutierrez was lined up next
Based on the 2014 performance payout schedule, the fifth place team was Williams and received $83 million dollars in FIA award payouts in 2015. That is where Haas is on pace to finish. for a team that is rumored to be operating in the $100 million range, the team could make profit if they sell enough hats. … But seriously, the team appears to be in a strong financial position as a result of their performance. Gene Haas was quoted somewhere as saying that paraphrase: Grosjean has already paid for himself.
So a great result. And again, I apologize to @RenaultSportF1 for a tweet comment. It was made in the “esprit de l’occasion”.
Bring on Barcelona!