Romain Grosjean has admitted moving to the Haas F1 Team in 2016 is a risk, but remains 100% convinced he has made the right move.
The Frenchman left the Lotus F1 Team at the end of the 2015 season after a long relationship with the Enstone team that included ten podium finishes, the last of which came during this years Belgian Grand Prix.
Grosjean knows joining a new team will always be a gamble, especially after what happened to the last four teams that joined the sport in 2010 – USGP (that never took to the track), Campos Racing (which became HRT), Team Lotus (which became Caterham) and Virgin Racing (which became Marussia and ultimately Manor) – only one of those teams remain, and they have only ever scored two points in their six years in the sport.
“It’s a risk because you always know what you have and you never know what you are going to get,” said Grosjean to Autosport. “But it is the same in life – when you change something, you know what you have and you guess what you’re going to have.
“It’s not a gamble because I have a bit of information which I wanted to have and I feel absolutely 100 per cent convinced.”
Grosjean has denied that he only moved to Haas so he could get closer to a possible future drive with Ferrari, and revealed he is looking forward to working with team owner Gene Haas and team boss Gunther Steiner in 2016.
“It’s certainly a move which will allow Ferrari to get a view of my data,” insisted Grosjean. “It’s getting closer to them than I was; but I didn’t go to Haas because I want to go to Ferrari.
“I want to go to Haas because I like the project, I like that it is an American team, I like Gene [Haas] and Gunther [Steiner] and the way they came to F1.
“If it can be successful and we get to Melbourne and we can go to Q3, imagine how big that would be. I want to be part of that.”
