Haas was the talking point of pre-season testing after a strong showing put them at the head of the midfield in the majority of predictions and that was backed up on Friday in Australia as Romain Grosjean was 'best of the rest' in both first and second practice.
Grosjean was seventh quickest in FP1 and seven-tenths down on the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel. In FP2 he improved to sixth – with thanks to a red flag which scuppered Daniel Ricciardo's fast lap – and closed the gap to Vettel to just two-tenths.
That's given the Frenchman some encouragement ahead of qualifying on Saturday with the belief that Haas are close to Ferrari and therefore fourth quickest on the grid.
"What is very encouraging is that we’re not too far from the Ferraris," Grosjean is quoted as saying by F1.com, "which is a good benchmark for us."
Grosjean is wary of the threat from behind despite his nearest challenger, McLaren's Fernando Alonso, more than half a second adrift.
"I think it’s pretty tight behind us as well. So it will be interesting and I think the midfield fight is going to be all year long.
“We need to see if it’s really no-man’s-land and what has happened to the other teams. I haven't seen exactly the running order and the red flag came probably at a time when some people were out there as well, like Ricciardo – I know he was out there when the red flag came.
“So no-man’s-land is not ideal, but on the other hand Force India were pretty happy last year where they were. If we can end up in that position it will be amazing, but we’re fighting big teams – McLaren, Renault, Force India – and they’ve shown they’ve got a lot of experience and they’ve got a lot of resource as well.
"It’s going to be an interesting fight and hopefully we can stay clear of them."
Haas team-mate Kevin Magnussen was embroiled in the thick of the midfield action, placing ninth.
