Romain Grosjean has expressed the need for Haas F1 Team to continue to improve in order to prevent a slump down the order.
Grosjean managed the ninth fastest time in Free Practice 1, 1.8 seconds adrift of pacesetter Sebastian Vettel. Like many others, the Frenchman opted against running in Practice 2, due to heavy rain soaking the Suzuka International Circuit.
But despite the overall lack of track time, Grosjean was pleased with the work carried out.
“FP1 was a solid session in between the drops of rain.” he said.
“We managed to do everything we wanted, more or less. It would’ve been nice to get a few more laps on the long run on high fuel before the rain came, but we saw how fast the car is anyway.”
Grosjean is keen to continue the progress in order to achieve Team Principal Guenther Steiner’s goal of seventh place in the Constructors’ Championship – potentially ahead of the 31-year-old’s former employers, the Renault Sport Formula One Team.
“The car’s doing OK for now, so we need to keep on that trend. We need to keep improving and making sure we don’t lose our way.”
Going into tomorrow’s final Practice session and the all important Qualifying hour, Grosjean admitted that the weather can curtail previous plans, calling for patience and adaptability, confident in his team’s ability to further improve depending on the conditions.
“The weather can determine a lot. We’ll see what happens between FP2 and FP3.”
“I think we have some ideas what to do [sic] to get the car better.”
