Gene Haas feels that Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez are eager to impress when the Haas F1 Team make their Grand Prix debut in this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.
The American believes the coup to sign Grosjean from Lotus/Renault at the end of 2015 was the right move, and believes the Frenchman is the right man to lead the team into the new season.
“There are a lot of really good drivers out there so that made it difficult,” said Haas to Motorsport.com of the search for a lead driver. “But we wanted to have an experienced F1 driver, and Grosjean fit that to a T.
“I look at the other top F1 teams and their drivers are typically more mature. There are places for rookie drivers, but not in a rookie team.
“I think both [Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez] fit well. Obviously a world champion was probably not going to join a start-up team, that wasn’t going to happen.
“At the same time neither won of them has won a race, so they are very hungry. This is their opportunity to prove that they can win races”
Despite being certain Grosjean is right for his team, Haas insists the Frenchman needs to lead the way in a mature manner in order to secure the points the team is striving for in 2016.
“We need Romain to show some maturity in how he drives, because our strategy is to score points – we’re not here to win titles or anything,” added Haas. “I think it’s a different strategy to what the big boys will be doing.”
