Haas expects to remain in the midfield this season after securing sixth place on debut at the Australian Grand Prix.
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Romain Grosjean made the most of a good strategy decision to one-stop his way to sixth place, having switched to medium tyres during a red flag period in Melbourne. Team principal Guenther Steiner admits the team exceeded expectations slightly but says the target is to repeat it in future.
Asked if he expects Haas to be fighting with the likes of Force India and Williams – the two cars directly behind Grosjean – again in future, Steiner replied: “Yeah we should be there.
“There will be some races where we are behind and some races where maybe we are even in front of them. But I think we are in that pack. I didn’t yet do an analysis of the times but while going along we could match their times, sometimes we are faster but it was all within tenths up and down.
“I think the Williams is faster to be honest, so I’m not getting carried away yet. I think the Toro Rosso underperformed, they are faster, they did it themselves which we are thankful for!”
While the result is a remarkable achievement for a team on debut, Steiner is more impressed with the level of competitiveness Haas showed.
“After yesterday we didn’t expect to finish sixth. We still maybe expected with a good strategy and everything to finish in the points but tenth or ninth, not sixth.
“Being there and being competitive with the other ones is more satisfying than anything else and then taking points home, we were there and we could play with the same times with the Force India, which isn’t bad.”
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AS IT HAPPENED: 2016 Australian Grand Prix
2016 F1 season: Team-by-team preview
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