Haas F!

[Rtrorkt]

Maybe a driver
BBC Sport - Romain Grosjean: Lotus driver poised for move to Haas team

[cockerpunk]

this would not be a good start for haas f1

[URY914]

I hope they build plenty of spares.....

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by URY914

I hope they build plenty of spares.....

I agree.

He has gotten better but still....

[Deschodt]

What, you wanted them to pick Maldonado ? ;-) Grosjean is fast, and mostly error free these past 2 years, his car is not all that planted and his record is way better than his team mate's. When he had a good car he did very well. NOw he's probably overdriving a dog.

I find it a strange choice... on his part, actually. It's likely Lotus becomes Renault and the engine is not as bad as it seems, or probably won't be next year. So instead at Haas he gets a Ferrari powertrain - fat lot of good it does Manor F1! At best Haas equals Sauber, whoop-dee-doo, mid field... He's already got that in Lotus, with a potential for a factory deal. Why? I mean what new team has managed to do anything noteworthy before year 3 or 4 in F1 ? Only one I can think of was Redbull and they bought JAguar which was Stewart, which was.... anyway.. Good luck to them !

I wonder if there is a deeper deal with Ferrari, a B-spec leak of data if you will... And possibly a test bed for a future Ferrari drive... On another note I just read Button might announce in suzuka that he is retiring at the end of the year. That would explain his funny radio messages...

[MrAlien]

He is probably the most experienced driver that could be on the market, but has not worked with the ferrari set up. Depending on what happens with Lotus, Hass might be his only only option. Odds are Gutierrez is likely high on their list of potential drivers, current ferrari test driver with grand prix experience.

[Rtrorkt]

article suggested he does Haas with Ferrari power that puts him in line for Kimi's seat in a year

[Ferraripete]

danica, danica, danica...she is THE answer.

[Ferraripete]

[COLOR="Lime"]should have been in green...all green all the time[/COLOR]

[Lothar]

F1 needs Danica, like it needs an engine formula that makes the cars sound like a high school student's Honda Civic with a fart-can muffler.

[ted]

I like Alexander Rossi...could Haas be helping him with his F1 ride this year in hopes of having an American driver in a Haas car?

[David]

Button!

[5String43]

Actually, the choice of Grosjean meshes pretty well with Haas' stated desire of bringing on a driver experienced with the current iteration of F1 cars. So while Hulkenberg probably would have been a better choice, this isn't a bad one, I don't think.

I'd hoped that Rossi would find a spot at Haas. His wins at Spa and Monza were impressive and his F1 debut this past weekend went well, I thought. I've read that Mercedes-AMG may take on Manor as a junior team for next year, so perhaps that bodes well for Rossi, if he can manage to hang on with that team.

Meanwhile, there's so much going on! Will perennial whiners Red Bull get a full-spec Ferrari engine or will its owner grab his coat and exit? If he does, will he find buyers for either of his teams? And this: What of Ross Brawn? Is he still off fishing somewhere or is he plotting a return to F1? I hope the latter, but you never know. I found it odd that Haas didn't lure him to the company and instead, hired Gunther Steiner as team principal. Steiner didn't exactly cover himself with glory while he ran the Toyota F1 squad. But who knows?

[Deschodt]

I was reading an interesting foreign article on the Haas, Renault, lotus, Grosjean deal... interesting stuff.. Paraphrasing here... Seems like rehiring Maldonado early (as just announced) was required to secure the PVDSA money promised for next year to Lotus (even if the $ is not here yet) and they needed that for accounting reasons so that the brit tax court would cut lotus a break and let them do a deal with Renault instead of putting them in bankruptcy early and killing their value / FOM money / start a personnel exodus.

All that stuff took too long before Romain Grosjean had to decide. He's already been saddled with loss of FP1 unilaterally this year, had a horrible year with Renault last year, and is actually not all that close to Renault (his deal is with Total the oil company) apparently the Haas deal came with a decent salary and promises made on "a shot" at a promotion to the Scuderia... and a clear #1 seat, with all the Free practice he wants ;-) No guarantees on promotion of course. Apparently Allison who runs Ferrari's engineering but used to be at lotus came around on his views of Grosjean and now rates him highly. He is said to have mentioned that to Haas, along with the supply of technical stuff that makes Haas a borderline Ferrari Junior Team. There are rumors of Manor being partially bought out / supported by Mercedes for the same reasons, apparently a junior team lets you skirt some rules and is a good place to park your future drivers...

It strikes me as odd for GSJN to try a new team like that, as I said earlier no new team ever looked all that good for a long time. But as Ferrari Jr team that is currently not monitored closely, it's possible they are getting a nice helping of Ferrari blueprints along with their drivetrain supply. It could be a good move. We all thought HAM was nuts to move to Mercedes initially, after all ;-)