The new American team ‘Haas F1 Team’ has announced today at a press conference in the USA their new driver: Romain Grosjean. The French leaves Lotus after 4 years to look for new goals and new experiences in his life. His teammate will be announced in the coming weeks.
Romain Grosjean, tired of the continuing problems of Lotus in these recent years, has refused to trust in the next project of Renault for 2016, and will give a new turn to his career after this season. Grosjean has been announced as the new Haas F1 Team driver, in a conference at Kannapolis (United States).
One of the most curious details has been seeing the Frenchman with Haas clothing, while he is still maintaining contract with Lotus for the remaining five races. Remember that Grosjean has been part during 4 years of the team from Enstone, which Romain has dedicated to them these words: “I must also thank the whole team at Enstone. It has been an honor to drive for them and stay together so long. I have many memories I will never forget.”
Before that, Grosjean made his debut in Formula 1 with Renault during the 2009 European Grand Prix in Valencia. For this reason, it was expected that the French was an important piece of Renault’s project in its new adventure in F1 for next year: “I have spent 10 years in Enstone, I know the guys well and would have been easy to follow there. But I want to win races and championships, and I felt that coming to Haas was a good step in that direction.”
After so discreet debut of Grosjean as Fernando Alonso’s mate, he backed to GP2 again to finish winning the championship in 2011. That fact catapulted him to Lotus F1 Team in 2012, when he was chosen to be Kimi Räikkönen’s teammate in a season in which the French made some great performances, but specially for his polemical crash that cost him even a race suspension after the mistake in Belgium.
But that’s past. Grosjean has done three seasons acting as a very mature driver who has achieved to carry on his team, despite its financial problems, giving 10 podiums to the formation of Enstone. Six of which they were in 2013 (when he strengthened himself as a driver), while the last was recently in Belgium, where he achieved his first podium since the partnership of Lotus-Mercedes, which will end this season. Remember that Renault is buying Lotus for 2016 and their first driver Pastor Maldonado has renovated a few days ago.
Finally, these were the first words of Grosjean as Haas driver, in which he defended his decision to risk and be part of a team that starts from scratch in this world of Formula 1:
“I am very happy and proud of driving for Haas F1 Team on 2016 season. It will be a new challenge and I’m sure it’s going to be exciting. I like the DNA of the team, I like the way that the things are going, going slow but fine. I am glad of my decision. I think it’s a new focus in Formula 1.“
The team owner, Gené Haas, said the following about the new driver Romain Grosjean, who has been named as first team driver.
“Romain was one of our principal candidates, he has been an excellent driver for Lotus. I’ve seen videos of his driving style and it’s amazing to see that each season has scored so many points. And that’s our main goal, to score points. Romain is a piece of the puzzle. He will be our first driver.”
“We had a lot of pressure to sign an American driver, but a rookie in the rookie team hadn’t been good. As American manufacturer, we wanted to show that we can race in the hardest competition in the world, and that’s the F1. And to maintain this goal it was necessary to do everything that we could. We are not here to say ‘we can do it by the American way’, we want to be competitive and have the right people in the team. With Romain, the difference is that there are only 20 drivers currently in Formula 1. Romain will have to work much harder than you think.“
Finally, the team leader in Formula 1, Gunther Steiner, has given his own view about the new signing from the team:
“We wanted an experienced driver but at the same time with ambition. I started talking with Romain’s representatives in Barcelona to see if they would be interested. We talked with several drivers, we talked to technical people about how Romain developed the car, because we are a completely new team and we need someone who knows what we have to do. I think we have chosen the best driver for what we are doing, we are very happy to have him with us and we are looking forward to work with him.”
