Romain Grosjean believes the critics of the way the Haas F1 Team have arrived in Formula 1 are just jealous that their approach has seemed to have paid off, at least in the short term.
The Frenchman has secured two top six results in the opening two races of the season, and Grosjean feels that the way Haas entered Formula 1 in 2016, which included a technical partnership with Ferrari, could open up opportunities for other teams to do it the same way in the future.
“There are two approaches,” said Grosjean to Autosport. “The Claire Williams approach, which is very nice, saying it’s very good for Formula 1 that there’s a new team coming, on top of that an American team, and being successful, it opens up the audience, opens it up to a big country, opens ideas up to other people that want to join Formula 1, and I am sure we would love to see 24, 26, 28 cars on the grid, it would be awesome.
“And then there are the people who are just jealous because they haven’t achieved what we have done so far. They’re just saying ‘it’s a Ferrari base, it’s not the way it should be’. Come on…”
Grosjean insists the Haas VF16 is most certainly a Haas designed car, even if it features some mechanical features brought over from Ferrari such as the engine, gearbox and suspension.
“It’s a completely different philosophy,” said Grosjean. “If you look at the wings, the sidepods, the nose, it’s a Haas car.
“Yes we’ve got the mechanical parts from Ferrari, which saves us a lot of hassle. But the rest is a Haas car. Mechanically we have the suspension and gearbox from Ferrari so that’s the philosophy that we have to use. They were good on tyres last year, we are good on tyres this year.”
