Haas driver Romain Grosjean has said that he'd be amazed if Haas's position in what he calls "no-mans land" - between the 'Big Three' and the midfield - is real.
Grosjean managed to finish sixth, just two tenths behind Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari and half a second in front of the next car - Fernando Alonso's McLaren. Daniel Ricciardo was on his hot lap to demote Grosjean to seventh but was impeded by a red flag.
"We need to see if this no-mans land is real and look at what happened to the other teams," the Frenchman said.
"It's not ideal to be in that position, but Force India looked pretty happy last year."
"It would be amazing if we can end up here, but there are some big teams we have to fight to get there - McLaren, Renault and Force India - and they have great experience and resources."
Grosjean continued by telling that Haas still has improvements to make and performance to find. The American outfit shouldn't focus on the teams ahead but on itself.
"We compete without competing, so the main thing is to focus on our own thing and focus on what we can do."
"Of course you want to compare yourself to others to see where you are, but if you do that you can get lost too."
The reason Grosjean finished so far ahead of his teammate Kevin Magnussen, team boss Guenther Steiner explained earlier, was because of some minor technical issues. The Dane still managed to finish in the top ten, however, and therefore in a hypothetical Q1.
Read more about:
Today
Popular on GPBlog
1
Vettel 'not allowed' to make F1 return: 'It's beautiful'
3944 times read
2
Brundle notices these worrying Hamilton traits in Ferrari data: 'It's always the same'
1088 times read
3
Russell claims he 'could have had two world championships' had he joined Hamilton at Mercedes earlier
1062 times read
4
Hamilton finds himself once again in a 'similar situation to what it was at Mercedes'
690 times read