The Haas F1 Team didn’t appear to have the pace in the pre-season testing and the practice sessions at the Australian Grand Prix, but they fought back to score their first Formula One championship points on their debut. They have become the first brand new team to score points on their debut since Toyota did it in 2002.
Things were not looking positive for the team when they arrived in Australia, returning to action after the final pre-season test, which was filled with Ferrari power unit issues. They were in the bottom five cars of all of the practice and qualifying sessions and a major accident involving Esteban Gutiérrez took one of the team’s cars out of the race.
Despite this, Romain Grosjean was able to use his Formula One experience to pilot the car into sixth position, scoring eight points in the World Championship. The red flag played largely into the team’s favour, as it allowed the team to make a tyre change without losing track position in the pits.
Romain Grosjean was happy to have got a good result for the team on their debut:
“A very good day at the office. This feels like a win. For all the guys who worked so hard over the last few weeks, this is unbelievable. We were unlucky yesterday, but got a bit lucky today with the red flag. Still, we were able to hold off the Williams [Valtteri Bottas] and the Force India [Nico Hülkenberg]. We didn’t have much set-up [time] on the car. It was a case of, off you go and see what happens. This is an unbelievable feeling. The guys did an amazing job and I told them, this is like a win for all of us. First race and here we are, P6. A happy day.”
Gene Haas had expressed his feelings about the complexity of Formula One during the pre-season testing in Barcelona. Haas comes from NASCAR, which is a much less complex sport than Formula One, so he was worried that he may have underestimated the amount of work that it would take to create a competitive team.
Gene Haas, the founder and chairman of the Haas F1 Team, took the time to thank everyone for their support:
“A lot of people have contributed to this, so we have to thank all the people, starting with Guenther Steiner [team principal] who put all this together and kept pushing me to go out and try this. The Ferrari people have been excellent. They’ve helped us a lot. Dallara helped us build the chassis. We’ve got a great sponsor in Haas Automation. It’s all great.
There’s a new F1 team on the block and it’s an American F1 team, so we’re real proud of that. But these other teams are pretty dang good at what they do. I wouldn’t sit here and say we’re going to be in front of them all the time, but today was a good day.”
Although it was a good day for the Haas team, Gene Haas knows that not all of their Formula One moments will be positive and that there will be some work to do to make sure that they remain as competitive as possible: “This is racing. It’s what we do for a living and, you know, it’s cool. But I’ll tell you, there’ll be some bad days too, so we’ll enjoy this one.”
No Drivers Injured In Australian Race Accident
Weekend Summary: 2016 Australian Grand Prix
Barcelona Pre-Season Test 2: Complete Summary
Barcelona Pre-Season Test 1: Complete Summary
