Saturday at Interlagos: Romain Grosjean best of the rest in Qualifying!

Gene Haas’s men did not disappoint, on the very day of the team’s owner’s 64th birthday!

Great overall performance by the Haas F1 Team with a very impressive 7th place by the French driver and even the 12th place secured by the Mexican driver. Yet, it wasn’t guaranteed as both Grosjean and Gutiérrez faced issues with their tires during practice and qualifying.

By opting for just one flying lap in Q2 and Q3, the former Lotus driver secured his personal best position of the entire season with this seventh place. He didn’t hide his great satisfaction at the end of this Saturday: “It’s good to be back in Q3, especially after the last two races where we were out in Q1 and struggled greatly. Here, we tried new brakes, focusing on their operation. The feeling was good from the start, and the cooler track conditions really helped us. There is still a lot of room for improvement in the future. We are always learning more about what we need to do, but we didn’t expect to reach Q3 today. Overall, when we manage to make everything work together, we are relatively fast, which is encouraging.”

.@RGrosjean happily taking about ‘that’ lap from #Q3 this afternoon. 👍 P7 equals his best grid start of the season. pic.twitter.com/RP1q1owEF5

— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) 12 novembre 2016

On Esteban Guttierez’s side – who needs to prove his full worth if he still hopes for a seat next year with another team; there’s a certain satisfaction in finding better sensations: « It was a very competitive qualifying session with lap times close to each other. We missed Q3, but it’s great that our performance has returned after two weekends where we struggled. We can be optimistic for the race. I will aim for points. We are aware of what needs to be done. »