Romain Grosjean was delighted to be back in the top 10 having qualified seventh for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
The Frenchman was arguably the star on Saturday as he and teammate Esteban Gutierrez moved Haas ahead of Williams after a shock improvement in performance.
“It’s good to be back in Q3, especially after the last two races where we were out in Q1 and really struggling,” he said.
The likely reason for Haas’ best qualifying since Suzuka was a successful test of new brake material in practice after suffering multiple issues in recent races.
Indeed, Grosjean kept the new material describing a “good” feeling right from the first session on Friday and believes there is much more to come from the American team.
“There are still plenty of margins to improve for the future, we’re always learning more about what we need to do, but we really weren’t expecting to be in Q3 today,” he claimed.
“Generally, though, when we do get things working well together, we’re quite fast, which is encouraging.
“The cooler track conditions today really helped us a lot [as well],” the Frenchman added.
What was equally impressive about Grosjean’s performance is he only had one lap in both Q2 and Q3 to get it right around one of the trickiest circuits on the calendar.
Therefore, to beat Williams and Force India into seventh place was a very impressive feat.
His teammate Gutierrez was a little disappointed to miss out on the top 10 in what was a very close battle to make the final shootout. However, despite the disappointing news that he will not be with Haas in 2017, Esteban is keen to show what he can do on Sunday.
“We can now be optimistic for the race tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll be aiming for the points.
“We’re aware of what we need to do and that’s what I’ll be targeting.”
