Romain Grosjean thinks his 2018 slump could finally be over.
Although driving the competitive Haas car, only the Frenchman and Williams’ Sergey Sirotkin are yet to score a single point so far this year.
But Grosjean qualified an impressive sixth in Austria. And in race Grosjean and Magnussen finished fourth and fifth respectively at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.
He said following the qualifying he is not worried his points slump will continue.
“I’ve scored points for every team I’ve driven for, in good and bad times,” Grosjean is quoted by Ekstra Bladet.
And he said he is confident the opening eight races of the season will not affect his contract negotiations for 2019.
“I’m pretty confident about the future,” said Grosjean.
“I know my season has not been good so far, but I also had 130 races before this and two seasons with this team. You cannot write something off after seven bad grands prix, where only three were my mistake,” he added.
“Building something with Haas is not over yet,” he continued. “Obviously I don’t have any points, but the team knows what I’m capable of and I’m very experienced in formula one.”
On a day of record-breaking achievement for the Haas F1 team:
* Grosjean’s fourth-place finish was the best individual result in the team’s three-year history.
* The team scored their third-ever double-points finish, with Grosjean’s fourth and Magnussen’s fifth also amounting to the team’s best-ever collective result.
* Magnussen climbed to seventh in the Drivers’ Championship.
* Haas overtook McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship with their haul of 22 points leaving them just 13 behind fourth-placed Renault.
* Haas guaranteed 2018 will be their best season in F1 to date after overtaking their haul of points from 2017 having already overhauled their tally of 29 in 2016, their debut season.
mercurial Grosjean was back to his best at the Red Bull Ring.
“I got a lot of punches and criticism but the team has always been behind me,” a beaming Grosjean told Sky Sports F1. “This weekend was what we wanted to stop that negative spiral and get back on a positive one.
“Here we’ve shown we can do some good racing and going back home and knowing my boys are proud of me is…YES!”
Team boss Gunther Steiner backed Grosjean to “deliver” in 2018, but would not comment on Haas’ driver plans for 2019.
“It was decided with Gene (Haas) not to talk about drivers before the summer break,” he said.
