Despite the bizarre black flag incident in opening practice, Romain Grosjean felt it was a good day for both him and the Haas F1 Team, with the pace of the VF-19 looking competitive around the Circuit de Monaco, a track the team has traditionally struggled on since their arrival in Formula 1.
Grosjean and team-mate Kevin Magnussen were both black-flagged during Thursday morning’s first free practice session around the principality as per request of the team, as result of the team experiencing telemetry and radio communication problems, but around this, both drivers were able to set times good enough to be in or around the top ten.
Grosjean completed twenty-three laps in the first session and finished tenth overall before ending eleventh fastest in the much busier afternoon session in which he completed fifty-one laps.
The Frenchman admitted he was unsure to just what kind of pace and performance Haas would have this weekend after having relatively poor weekends in Monaco in the past three years, but this year he feels they should be in the mix for a potential top ten starting position and possibly points on Sunday.
“It’s been a good day,” said Grosjean. “We didn’t really know what to expect coming here – obviously, last year here, it wasn’t our strongest race.
“I was open-minded to what we could get. I’m quite happy with the way the car was. We possibly didn’t quite choose the right set-up for FP2, but we tried something which was interesting.
“Now we can analyze all the data for Saturday. I think we should be in the mix for a good qualifying.”