Romain Grosjean signs Haas’s best qualifying result
The Albert Park circuit is definitely a favourite spot for Romain Grosjean: the Frenchman finished a fine 6th, the best grid position in the American team's history. Kevin Magnussen, on the other hand, could do no better than 17th due to driving errors.
Last year, Haas was one of the great enigmas of the grid. Some didn’t necessarily believe in the American project. The qualifications had confirmed the doubts of skeptics as the team faltered with the format of eliminations every minute.
Romain Grosjean, 6th (1:24.074 in Q3)
Nothing like that this year as Romain Grosjean was able to record the 6th fastest time in the qualifying session, which is simply the best performance in the young team’s history, something that can only delight the team director, Günther Steiner: Once again, congratulations to Romain. He did a great lap again. Thanks to everyone because what they did is fantastic. It’s our best qualifying, sixth behind the big teams. It’s great for the youngest team on the grid.
Romain Grosjean obviously shared this enthusiasm following his best qualification since the 2015 Canadian Grand Prix: « It’s a good start with a very good qualifying session. It indicates that if you continue to improve the car, you could be in a very good position very quickly. If this is our starting point and we can fight between the 6th and 10th place, or if it’s tight, it would be great to be able to fight for most of the time and savor good moments. »
A year after an unexpected sixth place finish at the race here, Romain Grosjean will hope to replicate at least as good a position, starting 13 places better than last year.
Kevin Magnussen, 17th (1:26.847 in Q1)
The smiles were far from Kevin Magnussen’s side, however. The Dane made two mistakes at the same spot during his two laps in Q1, going too wide at the 12th turn. The time penalty was swift, and the former McLaren and Renault driver was relegated to the 17th position, with his qualifying ending in Q1.
He could only regret his two personal mistakes while the potential of the car was illustrated by his teammate: « I went off at turn 12 on both of my laps. It really annoys me. The car was good in qualifying. My lap was good until I went off. I’m disappointed. We should have been much higher on the grid. »
Nevertheless, Günther Steiner did not want to throw too much blame on his new driver, explaining that the driver had not been able to run the ultra-soft tires during the three free practice sessions due to other issues. Therefore, he discovered how they function on this track during the qualifying, which is never ideal.
