Romain Grosjean was left to rue a relative lack of running as he drove Haas’ VF-17 in anger for the first time during pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Wednesday.
Grosjean took over from new team-mate Kevin Magnussen, who managed 169 laps across the first half of the opening test, as he logged the initial mileage on Haas' 2017 challenger.
Grosjean, though managed only 55 laps, as Haas finished at the foot of the mileage charts on the third day of running.
The Frenchman ultimately finished eighth of the 13 participants, and will remain in the car for Thursday’s wet weather running.
“It hasn’t been an easy day, we’ve had a few issues here and there so we didn’t do as many laps as we planned to, we didn’t complete the programme,” he said when asked of his thoughts by Motorsport Week.
“Generally those cars are going to be pretty cool to drive, going fast into the high-speed [corners], braking late, carrying speed into the corners, which is good.
“Pirelli has made some decent steps on the tyres and with the overheating, and the way you can push three laps in a row, which is a bit of a change.
“On setup we haven’t found where we want to be exactly, there’s a few things we need to work on and understand.
“But [I’m] just a bit disappointed that we didn’t get more mileage because tomorrow is going to be wet, 50 laps on the first week of testing is not ideal.”
When asked about whether he had pushed, he replied, “it’s not today [that] we want to try to go for pole position.
“So it’s more important to get the mileage and the feeling and finding out what are the weaknesses and strengths of the car and what we can work [on] and look at for next week.
“That’s where we need to focus now, there’s some good ideas flying around and at least some questions that we want to answer before we come back on a dry day.”
