Romain Grosjean says the partnership between Haas F1 and Ferrari was one of the key reasons behind his decision to join the new American outfit for 2016.
Grosjean became the first confirmed driver for Gene Haas' team, which will join the grid next season with a power unit supply and technical partnership with Ferrari. The Frenchman is considered one of the most underrated drivers on the current grid -- with 10 podium finishes to his name -- but is yet to score a victory in his 78 F1 starts.
Having ended his long affiliation with the Lotus team (formerly Renault) Grosjean believes Haas is the next logical step in his quest to become a race-winner and world champion.
"I've spent ten years in Enstone [at Lotus], I know the guys very well, and it would have been easy to stay comfortable and stay there," Grosjean said. "But in the end I want to try win races, win championships, and I felt coming here to Haas was a good step in a good direction to achieve that."
Haas' partnership with Ferrari has attracted a lot of attention, with the FIA's Marcin Budkowski visiting the Italian team's Maranello base and reporting nothing wrong with the way the two teams were operating together. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff labelled the partnership "very intelligent" in June and said it opened up new possibilities for teams to enter F1.
Team owner Gene Haas has made no secret of his desire to become a fully-fledged Ferrari B-Team and hopes to take as many parts from Ferrari allowed under the regulations. Grosjean says this unique approach -- one not copied by any recent entries to the F1 grid -- was an appealing factor in the move.
"I discovered the project a few years ago through the media and got to know a little bit more about what Gene and Gunther [Steiner] were doing and how it was nicely building up. And I like the fact that it's a different approach to what a normal, new F1 team would do. I think it's an approach that can be pretty quickly successful and if we're racing in Formula One it's not to be last on the grid it's to try to always do our best as a team, as a driver, and what we like is to try to drink the champagne on the podium.
"So I like the idea with the partnership with Ferrari, I like the way everything has been going, I like the fact it's going slowly but nicely and as I said in the media recently I'm very happy that I made that decision."