- 07 Apr 16, 13:19#439830ESPNF1:
Romain Grosjean says there is potential to unlock as much as 0.5s of one-lap performance from the Haas in the coming races.
Grosjean got his first season with the new American team off to a dream start, with a sixth-place finish in Australia and and fifth in Bahrain, putting him fifth in the standings ahead of Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel. Qualifying has been a slightly different story after the team did not make it out of Q1 in Australia, before qualifying ninth with Grosjean in Bahrain.
An extra 0.5s of performance would have put him sixth in Q2 in Bahrain, splitting the two Williams, and Grosjean said the team is setting its targets high for coming races.
"Behind Ferrari would be nice!" he said. "On paper we are not miles off Ferrari. Lap time wise ... I don't know how much was track evolution but let's look at the end of Q2 where we are one second away, a bit more than that. It's not ridiculous if we get everything right we should have another 0.4-0.5s possibly to gain."
Grosjean is also confident there is race pace to be found in the car's set-up, which means scoring regular points is a realistic proposition.
"Yes, in the race there is more performance coming as we're not at 100% of the set-up. There are going to be circuits that suit us better than others and we have to keep working, but yeah, I think we can [continue to aim for points]. We are a new team - it's not like the car is perfect and we can put it on track and that's where we are. We have a very good baseline, but there are a few things that we can improve."
Asked where the team needs to improve, Grosjean said: "There are a few things... You want more downforce with no more drag on the car; you want a few places to be improved - I think this weekend we have a few ideas what we can do on the mechanical set-up as well.
"You are used to numbers from the past and you come here and the numbers are different so it tends to go in one direction and then the numbers one day don't mean what they used to mean, so you have to kind of reset your mind and it's not easy to do."
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. 
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